Learn to Love Again
by ChestnutBrumby
Summary: Movieverse, a little book influence - An extended look inside R's head during the events of the movie, as he falls in love with Julie, and life seeps back to him. R has no recollection of his life before he died, but can he build a lifetime of memories in just a few days? R's POV. Originally a threeshot titled 'Trying' until I was encouraged by my wonderful reviewers to continue!
1. Truth

Julie is sleeping. I have spent the night reclined in the chair opposite her, fascinated by the tiny motions she made when she slept. When she first drifted off, I felt an unfamiliar pain in my chest. I wondered if it was some freak echo of the knife she'd thrown at me earlier. No, I couldn't feel pain any more - that was for the living. It was just my mind playing tricks on me.

Watching Julie sleeping was far more interesting anyway. I found myself copying her movements, turning her head slightly, drawing her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her hand. By the time dawn broke and the interior of the plane was growing lighter, she was curled up against the window, and without realizing, I was leaning in the same direction, out over the armrest as I studied her and tried to make sense of what I was experiencing.

The truth is... in all respects, I ought to have only developed feelings for Julie _after_ attacking and eating Perry. But really, they begun when I first saw her, crouched with the shotgun in her hands and her teeth clenched with fear and determination. I knew there was something there that I'd never seen in a human before. That was why I was so viciously angry when Perry broke the moment by shooting me. Of course it hadn't hurt. It wasn't only the hunger that caused me to target him - he had disrupted me before I could explore an emotion different to hunger, different to the typical apathy of the dead. I didn't know what it was then, but I did intend to find out. I wanted to understand. It was like I'd been thinking the other day on the travelator -_ I didn't want to be like this_.

Would I have kept Julie safe like this without Perry's influence? I doubted I'd have been able to, no matter what it was exactly that I'd noticed about her beforehand. I hadn't fed in some weeks, and I needed the rush of human memory to deepen and define the connection I'd felt for her upon laying my eyes on her. I had needed _Perry_ to bring Julie to me. He had wanted to die that day - wanted it as much as I'd wanted to live.

I hoped he would have understood. Could I, if our roles were reversed? Picturing myself as human was too much of a leap for me. So was picturing Perry as one of us Dead, because all the memories I had of him, contained inside my own head, were the rich vibrancy of human memories. They were very different to my Dead memories. But then, since Julie arrived, things seem... clearer. Sharper. I can remember better. Not anything that came before... but I have no problem now recalling the time she's spent in my home.


	2. Touch

The difference between the temperature of our skin was apparent to both of us. It wasn't just the fact that I was touching Julie with bloody fingers those first two times that made her flinch and cringe away from me. There was no true blood pumping through my arteries, no warmth in my sluggish limbs. The Dead don't need heat. When I brushed my hand over her face to smear the lifesaving blood onto her skin, I know she felt the dead coldness of my touch, and it was just another reminder of what I was.

To me, she felt like... I wouldn't know how to explain it. I've got nothing to compare her warmth to.

She felt like life.

I remember the first time she willingly touched me. The revulsion she felt for me had faded in the wake of the second time I'd saved her from the others. Ever capable and practical, she had accepted that she would be spending "a few days" with me. Finding her food had been the first major step, and I must have won major points with the beer - but then, she had been careful not to let her hand touch mine as she accepted the bottle. It was a good thing I'd had the beer left, recalling the awful moment she'd asked me my name and as usual, I couldn't remember it.

It had been the following day, after our drive and Julie's lunch. I was showing her images in... I've got no idea what to call them, another thing I don't have a name for... passing her cards, and her fingers grazed mine when she took the third one.

If she noticed, she hid it well. She surely felt the same freezing skin as she had before. I however, felt like I did some days when I stepped outside and felt the breeze ruffling my already untidy hair.

Refreshed. _Alive_.

I had felt human skin plenty of times when I fed. But this wasn't like that. I could never imagine hurting Julie now. I couldn't yet put a label on the emotion I'd felt that night when I first saw her, but it had grown stronger. The closest I could get to understanding it was the same words that I told her. _Keep you safe_.

I desperately longed for her to touch me again.

I began to keep a mental tally of the times our skin came into contact. I couldn't remember how to count anymore, how to read or assign meaning to numbers. But each brush of her hand became ingrained in my hazy memory. I could only hope that I wouldn't forget these precious moments the way I'd forgotten everything else.

She touched me three times when we tried glasses on - which was, in truth, the only reason I didn't protest the whole exercise. Surely my face was repulsive to her, with its pale pallor and the rough ridges of scars that couldn't heal? She didn't act like it was. Her fingers brushed my nose and cheeks as she took one pair from me, and then reached right back to replace them speculatively with another.

The next morning, she decided to teach me the game red hands. Red hands... should it have been called grey hands in my case?

It wasn't that I couldn't understood the rules. But when her hands slapped mine there could be no escaping it - she was deliberately choosing to touch me. It wasn't accidental, like the other times could have been. She could have stayed away from me, explored my 747 without choosing the play a game that involved touch.

I was so overwhelmed, I couldn't make myself try to tag her hands back. I wanted to feel that fleeting touch of hers, of her _choosing_, again and again.

At dusk, she the took my hand and explained the wave - I was so distracted by her soft fingers around mine I couldn't get the other arm to lift higher than my waist.

On the third day, after we talked about Perry, I tried to show her my understanding. I couldn't do it with words, so I put on Bob Dylan in my attempt to express hope.

If my heart had still been beating, it would have been deafening when I sat back down beside her. I pressed my hand over my chest, then reached out to lay it upon hers, just above the top of her blouse.

She didn't flinch, or scream, or even seem that bothered by my cold skin. Not only would she touch me willingly now, but she allowed _me_ to touch _her_. The steady timbre of her heart under my hand was soothing, and I found myself taking as much comfort from her as I'd intended to give to her.

She held my gaze with something like wonder, peering into my grey eyes in an attempt to decipher me. For the second time, she asked;

"What _are_ you?"

How I wish I knew.


	3. Secret Weapon

"Well then, you're just going to have to go and get me some food. Because I'm starving."

She was trying to get rid of me. I could tell that much. I could see it in the way she glanced out the windows - there was longing there. My expression couldn't reflect that emotion anymore, but it was still recognizable to me. _More_ than recognizable - I had felt longing for... how long? I didn't have any way to record the measure of time that I'd been like this. I felt longing, too. For a life different to this one. We both wanted the escape.

I sat still, trying to figure out if she would make a run for it if I went to find her a meal. Would her fear of my kind keep her up here, in safety? She'd seen what we could do at a pretty close range, hopefully that was enough. While I was puzzling it over she unleashed her secret weapon.

"Please?" I sat up, staring at her in astonishment. Nobody had said please to me in... well. That Julie was being polite to me came as a bit of a shock.

"I'd be very grateful for some food." She finished, holding my gaze. I was powerless, even if it was all just a ruse to get rid of me.

"Okay." I hated how shaky the single word sounded. How was I ever going to impress her when I could barely communicate with her? Rising, I made for the door, hesitated, and turned back. Since words weren't my specialty I opted instead for a 'wait here' signal with my hand.

I paused once more to look back at her before I went outside, unable to shake the feeling she might vanish while I was gone.

I hadn't even made it to the airport when I caught her scent. Fresh, warm... definitely outside the plane.

_Shit_.

I turned back as fast as I was able. Somehow my feet picked themselves up and I was able to maintain a shambling sort of run back to my 747. I had to track her scent from there - she hadn't made it far, only to the neighboring plane.

She was a few heartbeats away from winding up eaten. The thought of it filled me with horror and I did my best version of a zombie sprint and dropped to a kneeling position at her hiding place behind the landing gear.

She leaped a mile - I really had to work on my entrances. Hastily I let go of her shoulder and lifted my hand in a soothing motion. Glancing up to gauge the positions of my kin around us, I bit my lip. Close. Dangerously close.

"Don't... run..." No time for hoping that my vocal range had expanded. I hated the thought of hiding her scent, growing ever comforting to my mind, but blood was the only way I was getting her out of this. She was just lucky that I had a fresh supply. She flinched away from me as I marked her face for a second time with a smudge of bright crimson-red. I tried not to take it personally as I leaned in to sniff her carefully. Yes, she passed.

"Come. S-safe." I murmured, giving her wrist a light tug as she twisted her head around, trying to keep track of the nearest zombies. She rose and followed me and I felt a flash of sadness when she shook my hand off so quickly. My rusty voice was about to crack from overuse, but I forced the words out, the present danger overriding the usual need for silence.

"Be... dead. Rrrrgh." I instructed walking a few steps with my arms out to demonstrate. "O-kay?" Julie gave a single tiny nod, still tense from fear, and began to stagger and groan in a highly dramatic fashion. Moving in the more classic shamble, I leaned in towards her to mutter. "S'too... much." Thankfully, she toned it down a notch.

"Told you... n-ot... s- sa-a-fe." Definitely too much speaking. I'd just turned a single syllable word into four. Shoot me now.

"Yeah, I get that." She hissed back with some indignation in her tone. I wished I could use that much infliction. "I really _am_ hungry though." She protested. We took a small detour on the way back home, and after we discovered a case of tins in what I think used to be a juice bar, which we split between us to carry back. Julie whipped out the set of scissors she has used to threaten me last night and had the tin stabbed open faster than I could blink. It was fascinating, watching her chew, eyes closed, obviously relishing the meal.

For me, there was no pleasure in the actual act of eating anything. The memories from the brain were certainly... _enjoyable_ is the wrong word, treasured, perhaps? But every part of a human to a zombie, weather they are eating limb or liver or anything in between, has no taste. It's just the mindless cycle to live.

But then, are we even really alive?

Julie swallowed her mouthful, looked up at me, smiled uncomfortably.

_Oh no! Stop staring, you're acting weird again_! I sharply ordered myself, breaking eye contact and shuffling off down the aisle. I pulled open one of the storage lockers to find a once-familiar bottle. Not cold anymore, but as I brought it back to Julie it seemed like she didn't mind. The bottle apparently was more... treasured... than the tin of fruit.

"_Thank_ you." Once again, I was shocked by her manners, and the fact that she'd actually meant it. Why was she even bothering to thank a monster like me? I slumped into a sitting position in the middle of the aisle, leaning against the side of a chair, dumbstruck.

But that's not exactly new for me.

She opened the beer with a motion so quick I could barely follow. I was impressed - even if I'd wanted to try an actual human drink, I never would have been able to get the cap off like that.

Like the bottle cap that flew off, thoughts and feelings were jetting out of me that I'd barely been aware of before meeting Julie.

There were so many things I wanted to do and to say, except as always, my body betrayed me, staring my soulless stare at this beautiful creature who had fallen so suddenly into my world.

* * *

**I had so much fun writing this chapter! R's head is a very comfortable place to be in, and this all sort of flowed very naturally from a writing point of view. I began writing this chapter though, because my reviewers made me very happy by giving me feedback and encouragement, especially Videlicet - this is for you guys! **


	4. From Nerves into Names

_When did she stop being afraid of me?_

When I'd first brought her home, decorated with my dark blood blotting her golden face, she'd been in something close to shock. The shuffle she managed, sometimes guided by a nudge or a tug on her shirtsleeve from me, passed for our kind. She'd huddled on the first row of seats and stared at me with fearful tears trickling down her face. Attempts on my part to reassure her that I wasn't about to eat her were largely pathetic - I made a mental note off her reaction that my miming abilities were definitely not better than my conversational skills.

"Keep you s-afe." That was a bit better, even if my voice rasped uncomfortably on the last word. But when I got up to move towards her, she flinched violently away, sobs wracking her body.

It was killing me to see her cry. To know I was the cause of it. What was it about those tears? I couldn't bear them.

I pulled back, and shuffled down the aisle, off the plane. I understood a little better, after I'd sat in the mercedes and eaten. _Why_ she was so scared. She'd been attacked by somebody who she knew. Family, even.

Something else about the memory of her and Perry finding his father stuck with me. She'd shot him in the head when he charged his own son, the fresh hunger, worst the first time, overriding any spark of recognition he might have had for his own flesh and blood.

Had Perry forgiven her for that? They had still been together when I... killed him. He must have forgiven her - for such a huge step as killing his father? Even in the defense of Perry's own life, you couldn't deny that was a big hurdle to get over in a relationship.

Could Julie ever do the same?

When I returned after my meal, she was huddled up, limbs drawn close to her body, shivering, and clutching a pair of scissors point-first as she warily watched my approach. I stared at her for a moment, too afraid my voice wouldn't work well enough to reassure her. Instead I pulled out a blanket to cover her.

She didn't stab me, so that was progress.

"Why me?" The point of the blades still stuck out warningly from under her blanket. "Why did you save me?" Her voice was stronger now. Not as shaky, as she recovered from the shock. I wish _my_ voice would improve so rapidly.

"Don't..." I struggled, the next word sticking in my throat. "C-cry." I sighed at length, cursing again my vocal limitations. I turned to Guns N' Roses, instead.

It didn't stop her, in that moment, from being afraid. But she was curious.

"What are you?"

That question was going to keep coming up, I could tell. How could I explain to her with my few hoarse syllables that I'd spent so many nights reclining and puzzling over that same question?

When she made her first escape attempt the following morning, she was still scared of me. Obviously, since otherwise she wouldn't have tried.

She had, as I've said, jumped out of her skin when I caught her hiding behind the landing gear. But then, there were two dozen hungry zombies sniffing her out at that point in time, so it might have been that situation scaring her, not me personally.

I hoped.

"Oh, man. I can't remember the last time I had a _beer_." Julie sighed, leaning her head back against the headrest for a moment in bliss. "Guess you can't be all that bad, Mr. Zombie."

"M... m..my... n-naame." More effort. I had to be capable of more than this!

Julie stopped mid-chew and stared at me. "You have a _name_?" Clearly, this has not occurred to her.

I offered my stiffened version of a nod, eagerness twitching at my brow and lips as expression tried to repaint itself onto the long-still canvas of my features. Julie was still eying me in amazement. "What is your name?"

Damn, I shuffled right into that one. If there was ever a time for my memory to magically surface, this was it.

I closed my eyes in concentration, taking a deep breath. _You can do this! Think!_ Think!

"Rrrr-rrrr..." Or not.

"Rrr?" Julie repeated in confusion. This date was not going well. I want to die all over again.

"Rrrrrrrrrrrr..." Second attempt, no magically reoccurring memory.

"Does your name _start_ with R?" I nodded, because trying to explain that I wasn't even sure of that much would have taken me to all new levels of pathetic.

"Um... Robert?"

"Nn." I shook my head. Twitched my head might have been more appropriate. It seemed to get the message across though, and it couldn't have been worse than my stuttering mode of speech.

"Richard?"

Another shake. Surely, if she'd said it, I'd know. I'd remember. It would all be different, if it came from Julie's lips.

"Randy, ah... Rafael... Richardo?" Julie was clearly running out of names. Disheartened, I slumped back against the edge of the chair. Julie saved the moment.

"Why don't I just... call you R?" She suggested. "I mean, that's a start, right?"

Hope burst through me like the warm flame of a human memory. I felt my lips twist into a smile, or at least an approximation of one.

"R." I repeated, enthralled by the sound of it. It didn't matter to me that it was only a single letter, potentially shared by countless others like myself. It was special because Julie had given it to me.

In all of this conversation about my part-of-a-name, I totally missed it. _That_ was the moment when Julie stopped being truly afraid of me. Oh, the fear wasn't gone completely, her hard survival edge too ingrained for that. But it had dulled down, become more more caution than fear.

I could only wait, newly named, and hope that someday it might be more.

* * *

**So I saw Warm Bodies for the final time on the big screen tonight - the last showing before it finishes altogether at my local theater. Thought I'd celebrate with a chapter here! **

**Shout outs... Thanks, as always to ****all**** my readers and reviewers, I really love hearing what you though, even if you only have time to let me know you liked it. **

**Videlicet gets a big shout out for encouraging this fic with awesome reviews! Vid, as you can guess, I've seen the movie 'a few times' myself ;) You share my exact feelings on the moment Julie says "Please" to R, that instant when he sits up and reacts is what brought about chapter 3 as a matter of fact. It's also awesome to hear which lines you liked, I was actually pretty proud of "work on my entrances" because I find humour/witty moments don't come very naturally to me, so many thanks once again my friend! **

**Jusea you have taken the time to review every chapter, cheers! I'm glad you think my little fic is well written, that is always a magic thing to hear :) **

**Ditto to Ravenclaw, for the same compliment and for staying loyal to the fic! **

**You too Bridgid, I am still very happy inside R's mind, it is a thoroughly enjoyable place to whittle an hour or two away!  
**


	5. R Trying

We were walking slowly back to the plane after our car ride, with Julie matching her pace to mine. There weren't any zombies near us, but a small bunch were downwind near an abandoned luggage cart and I kept a careful eye on them, in case they felt like snacking.

"Hey R, why didn't you ever take the car to go hunting? It must take forever to walk everywhere like you do." It was the sort of offhand remark about my eating habits that made me hope she was forgetting about the potential danger I represented. I had saved her life for a second time this morning, and was hopefully moving out of the axe-murderer category and into... well, any upgrade would be better than that, right?

"Ev-ery...where... walking... di-stan-ce..." Julie turned her head to watch me as I attempted to explain, making me even more nervous. "...If y-ou, h-ave... t-time."

"Huh. I guess so. Never thought about it that way." She reflected, hoisting a bag and adjusting the strap over her shoulder. We'd swung by the terminal to pick up more tins for her. Living humans needed to eat so _often_, I had forgotten. Julie ate often, spoke often, questioned often, and moved swiftly. Except of course when, like now, she was passing for one of us.

I wanted to explain a little better, how I'd never been able to keep track of the gears and the key and the handbreak and the peddles all at once without her, but my voice refused to co-operate - as if exhausted by my previous long sentence, it had stubbornly gone on strike. When my mouth opened I couldn't even get out a grunt, so giving up, I shrugged instead. My own version of small talk was... _really _small.

"Stop shrugging all the time." Julie scolded me, swatting my shoulder gently. Apparently living with my bad habits was already starting to get on her nerves. Good thing I didn't leave dirty dishes out or toilet seats up. "I know you can talk."

"Try-ing." I had to take a deep breath to force the sound out, and the second syllable was little more than a sigh with slight infliction. Julie shot me a curious, appraising sort of look, silent for a moment while she studied me. Her features softened slightly, then she shot me a smile.

If she'd thrown another knife at me, I couldn't have been more surprised. I almost pitched face-first onto the tarmac.

It was a real smile. An honest smile. A dimple touched each of her cheeks, her blue eyes lit up, and a flush of warmth coloured her face.

Nobody smiled anymore. Nobody in my world. I was already entranced by the amount of emotion that Julie could reflect on her face, and felt like I could have watched her for hours at a time, but a smile just for me... that was when I really began to understand that I was falling in love with her.

Love... it should have been impossible for me. I shouldn't be feeling anything, except... I _was_. I was _feeling_, more every passing day. Every time I looked at Julie, a new letter of emotion wrote itself down inside me, too complex to make out the whole message yet, much as I wanted to. But I knew that it was happening, and I knew now where my long-still heart was trying to lead me.

"You know, you're right. I shouldn't be so hard on you. It's just sometimes it's so easy to forget you're not just a normal guy. Apart from being really pale, you could pass for a human most of the time."

I felt a fleeting stab of sadness at the term 'pass for human'. Then, I wasn't human anymore? But something about Julie's offhand comment stuck with me after the initial sadness faded. Emotions were hard for me to hold on to.

_Could_ I pass for a human if I wanted to?

Back at the plane while Julie gathered her eating utensils together I slipped into the toilet stall and stared at the small mirror set into the wall. A layer of grime had crept over it, and I wiped it off with my hand to study my reflection.

My dominant feature, aside from the obviously pale skin Julie had mentioned, were my eyes, a bit too big for my thin face. They stood out a strange, unearthly grey shade and were further highlighted by the shadows encircling them. Why were they that colour? What colour had they been when I was human? If I stared closely enough, I thought I could see a hint of blue behind the clouds. Maybe that was just wistful thinking. The most important set of eyes in my life were blue, and it was an easy leap for me to make to assume mine used to be that colour too.

Not that it mattered. Blue, or brown or hazel or whatever, they were grey now.

Where had I gotten the scars? The most obvious was a long one down my cheek, running beside my nose. There was one on the opposite cheek too, that slanted up under my eye. A shorted one crossed my lips, and there was a less noticeable one over the bridge of my nose. Another subtle slash crept down my forehead, and I only spotted it when I pushed my untidy hair aside. It actually ran down through my right eyebrow, the hair along the narrow line unable to grow back again.

_Knife_, I decided at length. I couldn't feel pain, so it made sense that in the course of my hunting trips, some of my victims had fought back without my noticing. (Not everybody is quite as direct as to throw a knife into my chest). What was a little more bloodshed, amidst so much? I probably hadn't even known, rubbing it off my face, that it was my own blood.

I flinched when I noticed the outlined veins on my neck. When had that happened? They stood out, horribly black against my pale skin. I ran my fingers over them experimentally, applying a slight amount of pressure. Like an old bruise, they vanished briefly, then reappeared when I removed my hand. They weren't as easy to figure out as the scars.

Or maybe they were. Maybe they were just there because I was dead.

At least I was clean-shaven, unlike M, who was always going to appear stubbled. My hair was on the scruffy side, though, but then I knew that because it was constantly falling into my eyes. How old was I? It was impossible for me to hazard a guess solely off my appearance, and not just because of my smooth-but-scarred cheeks. How would I calculate my age anyway? From the age I'd been before I 'died', or was the politically correct way that plus however many years I'd been this way?

How long _had_ I been like this?

"Hey R, what are you doing? Come and sit down." Julie called. I could hear the clunk as she set down a tin, ready to eat. I slipped back out into the main body of the plane to join her. It was strange, but we had already begun to establish a routine. Julie didn't start to eat until I sat down next to or opposite her, even though I didn't eat with her. I doubted there were rules of etiquette that applied when you were dining with a zombie suitor, but that was okay. We were coming up with our own brand of etiquette.

* * *

**A/N - Until now I've basically been sticking to the events of the movie but this chapter just ran off on a little tangent, all on its own! I'm looking upon these sort of chapters as 'deleted scenes' of a type until the DVD comes out - apparently there are deleted scenes **_**and **_**a gag reel, score! **

**A shameless plug - I made an R/Julie music video today that's a sort of companion vid for this fanfic. There is a link in my profile, for anyone who is interested! **

**Thanks and shoutouts to my small but loyal family of reviewers, you guys seriously offer me so much motivation to keep this fic going. You rock! **

**Vid, if we knew each other in real life, we would be devoting hours on end to watching Warm Bodies, then yet more hours watching it solely to dissect it, for sure! **

**I think the smile during the name conversation is the first really recognizable one he does, yes. He has a happy/relaxed sort of expression when he reclines back in the chair the first night, but it's not reeeeally a smile, more contentment. (See? **_**This **_**is what we'd spend hours doing!) Oh, and yes, it is going to be a difficult task for me to carry R on when he's human and better able to communicate, and still have him sound like R. I think I'll get there, if not with **_**Trying**_**, then in a sequel. I also had an idea to do the movie from Julie's POV as well, but I may have to pick between that and a post-movie sequel in R's POV, as I doubt I'll have time to devote to both. **

**I wish I was less crazy sometimes, but the truth is I frequently find myself addicted to movies on this level. Ah well, I am crazy, but very happy. **


	6. Memories of a Hoarder

"Hey R?"

I almost startled. Julie had been reclining back in one of the extra-padded first class chairs with a book, an overhead light on so she could read. I was settled across the aisle, feeling oddly restless but unsure what to do about it. So I wound up just sitting, watching her read, which soothed my nerves somewhat. Like when she slept, even deeply engrossed in a book she wasn't completely still. She brushed her hair back, chewed her bottom lip, occasionally smiled at the words on the page before her.

Her sudden movement, looking up to catch me staring, surprised me and I hastily averted my gaze down at my feet, slumping down in my chair. She didn't appear bothered however, so maybe my mission not to be creepy was succeeding.

"Y-eah?"

"How come you collect all these things?" She waved a hand at the pile of books on the seat beside her, then more vaguely around at the body of the plane, of which most surfaces were covered with my various collections.

She really liked to pick the most difficult questions for me to answer. This was right up there with "What are you?", and in league with it. Both should have been simple questions with simple answers. I treasured my possessions. I could - I did - spend days organizing them into groups and clusters that probably wouldn't have made sense to anyone else, carefully stacking and arranging so that I could fit as much as I could, and still see everything. Life couldn't ground itself in the inanimate objects around me any better than it could retain itself inside my own cold viens, but the things around me created an illusion of life that I had clung to.

I pulled myself together - had to stop getting lost inside my slow-moving mind when Julie was waiting for me to reply - and tried to explain. Can I just mention that trying to explain something you're not sure of yourself is difficult?

"Col-lect from airport f... first." I think I had, anyway. As I said it, an image popped into my mind of my pale hands working at a suitcase, trying several feeble tugs and prods until I figured out how to open the latch. It popped open to reveal two sets of clothing, one big and one small, with a few toys tucked in the corner. One of them was the viewfinder Julie and I had looked at during her second day with me.

"La-lugage." I clarified, pulling a breath into my stale lungs to try and keep the words flowing. I didn't need oxygen anymore, except to speak, so I had to remind myself to do it. "The-then gift sh-shops." Again, as I was speaking, I saw myself shambling down the ruined aisle of an airport shop, pausing to overturn a chunk of plaster and discover the dog with the bobbing head.

"Th-en from the city." I was pleased by how almost-normal that sentence sounded. Aside from a stumble on the first word, I sounded pretty Living - maybe it was just a matter of practice?

Julie looked as if she were still puzzling things over. "Okay, I get _where_ you got them, sure. But why? You must have had some reason to bring them all here."

Did I? Had I even really thought about it each time that I stashed something new in my hoody's pocket? Julie was making me rethink more than just being a zombie. She was leading me to examine the ways I lived my strange half-life. I had to have motives for the things that I did, even if they were hiding so deeply buried in my dying layers I wasn't sure they were there.

"Ah-it's... what... Living would d-do." I offered weakly, with some nervousness. Julie stayed perfectly still for almost a full minute, until her fingers tapped thoughtfully on the pages of her book, which she then closed.

"Do you miss being... Living?" I didn't miss her choice of the word Living. I think she might have been going to say 'alive' and decided it didn't fit. The lines that separated us seemed to be growing more indistinct.

"Don't... remember... b-being Living." I told her sadly.

"At all? That's why... you don't remember your name." She realized, and I gave a little shrug before I could help myself, then quickly nodded instead, a jerky bob of my head. Her eyes as she continued to appraise me were so blue, even with night having fallen and only a few lights on inside the plane, so penetrating, I felt like she could see right through my skin to the wasted flesh and organs beneath.

"You can still miss things you don't remember." She said very softly, so softly I thought I hadn't heard her at first. But as her words sank in I sat up straighter, staring at her in stark astonishment. She was _right_. She _understood_. A huge lump rose in my throat so that I knew even if I had tried to speak I would have failed miserably. I had to look away from those very blue eyes, swallowing hard. Despite what she'd said to me, the connection she had forged, in that moment I felt the weight of loneliness even more crushing than usual.

"So... well, I didn't realize how late it's gotten." She sighed with a glance at one of the many clocks I had collected and were now strewn about the plane. Julie had put some batteries - one item I found a lot of in people's luggage - in some so that she could tell the time. (I still struggled with numbers). The quiet ticking sound was reassuring, especially at night. A second background noise to add to Julie's breathing.

"I'm going to go to bed. I think it'll be more comfortable on the floor, I don't want to be all cramped up in a seat tonight." She tucked the book she was reading into the seat pocket in front of her. I caught a glimpse of the cover and for a second I wished more than anything I could read the title. Read the whole thing, then talk about it with Julie, and learn the truth behind those smiles and sighs and thoughtful looks as she turned the pages. The ache within me was like nothing I could compare to.

Grateful for the chance to collect myself I stood up, went to the overhead locker that held the blankets, and clicked it open. As the bottom half folded downwards I heard a faint voice echo in my ears, like catching a snippet of a conversation from a passer-by.

"-_careful, as items may have shifted or moved during_-" I hesitated, frowning slightly. Remembering Julie waiting for her blanket, I mentally pushed aside the strangely lingering words and pulled one out for her. I shook it open before handing it over. She tucked a blue seat cushion under her arm, accepted the blanket, and smiled at me in thanks.

I don't think anybody could have missed seeing the beauty in that smile. Even after a few days it still made me trip over my own feet - one of the rare times I was grateful for being Dead, since it rarely looked out of place to see a zombie miss a step.

Daringly I dropped to the ground on the opposite side of the aisle to where she was settling down. Half expecting a protest at my relative proximity, I lay on my back while she got comfortable, one arm above her head and the other hand tucked away under her chin. She nestled up under the blanket and then her blue eyes blinked open and she smiled a smaller, dozy smile at me. It still reached her eyes. It still made her look so far beyond beautiful I could barely stand it. I took a moment to be very thankful that I was already lying down.

"Goodnight, R."

Already blown away by her smile, I can't explain what the soft, sleepy voice telling me goodnight did to my heart. Who ever bothered wishing a zombie a good night? But that was the point - Julie didn't have to say it. She knew I didn't sleep... hmm. I wondered if she knew what I did all night, namely, lying there and watching her. It was fascinating, watching Julie sleep. I could do it every night for the rest of my life and not get tired of her. She'd caught me that first morning when she woke up and I was still staring, but after that I learned to recognize the warning signs. Her breath came a little quicker and not as deep, her fingers twitched with tiny motions, and just before she opened her eyes her head shook slightly, as if she were reluctant to wake up properly. I was careful to go dig up a tin for (her) breakfast, organize my records, or otherwise look busy before she woke.

"Night. Julie." I rasped, and her lips twitched upwards slightly as she exhaled and fell asleep.

With every minute that passed, I fell a little more in love with this girl.

* * *

**Great to see some new faces reviewing, I really appreciate everyone who does, thanks guys! I thoroughly enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope it's as much fun to read. While I wouldn't go so far to call myself a hoarder (unless we want to count books or DVDs, at least...), but I most certainly am fond of my possessions, and that gave me a little insight into R's head for this chapter. **

**Have you guys all Liked the Warm Bodies Facebook page? It's been making me laugh and has great DVD/merchandise updates - oh, and keep your eyes open for a great "Don't Be Creepy" poster of R in the shower. I think I might need that one on a t-shirt come to think of it... **

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**Vid, so sorry that I am making you review All The Things but seriously, I always get such a kick out of hearing what you've thought, so please continue to do so - you have my permission to monopolize away :D The way you see the movie is definitely on the same level as me, but your reactions to things really help me take a look from a different angle, and that's really useful to this fic as a whole. Great thoughts about zombie reflections and appearances, I completely agree, that pushing his hair back is one of the first signs we see! **

**I would fuss over him a lot more too - don't worry, we will, eventually, get to the fussing and there will be more than the movie revealed :) **

**I have a digital copy of the movie myself, which isn't to say I won't be pouncing on the DVD the moment it comes out. Good thing my machine can play US DVDs, otherwise who knows how long I'll wait for the Aussie release. I did wonder about her tears myself when she's crying talking to him the night in the house. Regret at leaving him? Understanding that he is, in fact, a person as she says? Regret that she can't figure out how to keep him in her life?  
They're a good match for one another! **


	7. Laughter and Tears

I was intrigued when Julie gave me my first driving lesson - not just because it was Julie, and not just because I'd never been able to figure out the car without her quick, clever hands on the wheel. Because Julie made a sound that I couldn't identify at first.

I hadn't heard laughter in so long. Since, you know, the Dead didn't have a lot to laugh about, and very few of my victims found the prospect of being killed and eaten really amusing.

It wasn't a lengthy laugh - more of a chuckle, when I finally got the car headed in a straight line. The Mercedes seemed to rebel against having me behind the wheel. But then I was driving straight along the runway, our hair ruffling, with Julie laughing softly in the passenger seat, and it was a good thing there was nothing for me to run in to. I couldn't stop from turning my head to stare at the sound of the laugh. It matched her smile perfectly.

"Okay, two hands on the wheel, buddy." Julie specified, and I tried to return my attention to my driving.

I wished I had the ability to make her laugh. I wished my dull mind could come up with a premise and a punchline and hear her laugh properly. I wanted to see her eyes light up and her teeth flash and her shoulders shake in amusement. The sound of her laughter became another thing I treasured, another of the rare memories that stuck inside my head with perfect clarity.

Sometimes I heard a laugh in her words - like when she asked me about my records and called me a purist. Sometimes she laughed properly on its own, like when I showed her the viewfinder, and when she found my collections of glasses and used me to model them.

Despite the roughness of the world she'd grown up in, I suspected that Julie loved to laugh. Which suited me fine, because just like her smile I was entranced by her laughter, not just the novelty of it in my frozen world but the emotion that it conveyed.

Her laughter was better than her tears. Seeing Julie crying did something strange to my insides. It had the very first time I'd seen her tears, when I cornered her at the lab. It had shortly after that when I'd approached her in the plane - it had affected me so strongly then I'd tried to tell her. I didn't want her to cry. I didn't want her to be unhappy.

Now, as she told me about Perry, I could hear the tremor in her normally collected voice that warned me she was going to cry again.

I already knew a lot of things about Perry, of course. I had his memories firsthand inside my head, though they became secondhand as my own mind collided with his. But still, hearing Julie, the person who loved him, talk about him made me as uncomfortable as if my skin were starting to peel off. Maybe it was because I couldn't cry to express my emotion? The sadness got stuck inside of me, fighting to get out.

Sure enough, Julie raised her hand to wipe a tear from under her eye. I knew I was the cause of that tear. She was crying over Perry, and no matter how prepared she was for his death... it had come at my hands. She was crying because I'd killed the person she loved.

I felt like I would go to any lengths so that Julie never felt like crying again. I wanted to cry for her. I wanted to... to... I don't know. It was like me trying to read. I knew it _should_ make sense, I knew I ought to be able to understand mechanically, but somewhere along the line something in me had broken.

But I wanted to fix it. If only I knew how to fix it...

When darkness fell that night Julie went to sleep early, her eyes closing as dusk drew in the last flashes of light from the sun. I thought about lying down on the floor opposite her, and for a moment I stood beside her sleeping figure, watching her.

I'd never noticed until now, but she had three earrings in each ear, two plain silver studs and a small black stone inset into silver base. I had to swallow a lump in my throat when I saw them.

A state of longing rose in me, mingled with something a lot more familiar. _Hunger_. Hesitating, I touched my pocket, checking how much I had left. The last thing I wanted while I had a human under my roof was to be hungry. Keeping Julie safe from myself was just another part of my promise. More than the physical need, I felt a different sort of desire to see more of Perry's life, to see Julie out in the sunlight.

This time was different. I was horrified when I realize I was experiencing Perry's last moments alive. Usually, when I get somebody's memories I go into a trance... I forget about being me, being what I am. It's part of what makes the memories so precious to me.

But I couldn't forget this time. There I was in Perry's memory, lunging towards him, my face - was that really my face? - twisted with hate. I was watching myself. I terrified myself.

My eyes shot open and I choked up what was left of my meal, horrified at myself. What was I? What WAS I!

I turned to ground myself with Julie's sleeping figure, knowing that just looking at her would make me feel better, would cause the hole that gaped within me to be...

Gone.

Julie was gone!

I panicked, remembering too all well what had happened to her last time she tried to run for it. She wasn't safe outside the plane! I almost fell down the stairs, spinning in a full 360 when my feet touched the tarmac to figure out which way she'd gone. It took so long, my senses scrambled by my shaky thoughts, that I feared I'd forgotten how to track. Then I faintly caught her scent, so familiar to me now, and I don't think my body had ever moved so fast. I knew it was the right way when I reached the terminal.

What if something happened to her? _Then it would be all my fault_. I'd kept her here, foolishly thinking that I could keep her safe from my own kind. She would have been safe behind the walls. If Julie died because of me, I'd fall where I stood, curl up and waste into nothing. No, probably into a Boney, but surely they weren't capable of the anguish that consumed me now.

I heard her scream, over the sound of an engine. I knew it was her. The scream was like the laugh, like the tears - it called to me. I couldn't not answer.

She was crouched in the center of a circle of zombies, the whirring of a hedge-trimmer her only protection.

Move move move _movemovemovemovemove_! One of them had a hold of Julie by the time I reached them, wrenching the hedge trimmer from her grip then tossing aside her weapon of choice. I punched his jaw. Every bit of the terror that had been inside me suddenly about-faced into rage. I grabbed another who'd tried to harm Julie, and the crack of into a bench included his own bones.

Julie screamed again and instantly I dropped the body I still clutched in my angry hands, tackling the next zombie who had advanced towards her. Once he was down, a single smash from a bar kept him that way. The rest, when I paused to evaluate, were convinced to stay down either from my own rage or Julie's work with the hedge trimmer.

Julie released a breath and looked at the corpses on the ground, then looked up at me. I have no idea what my expression looked like as she met my eye. It probably couldn't accurately reflect how hurt I was that she'd tried to sneak away from me, nor how scared I'd been for her.

"You said a few days." Julie told me, regret and accusation mingling in her voice. "It's been a few days, R."

I checked that none of the bodies on the ground were moving, then nodded reluctantly.

I didn't want our time together to end. I'd never brought up that it might have been a safe time for Julie to leave, and it wasn't accidental. Now that the brilliant spark of her life intertwining with mine could be seen, I knew I'd be worse than blind if I couldn't see her anymore.

I had to explain it to her. I couldn't let her go. I _needed_ her. I reached for the words.

_Say something! Say _anything!

Julie sighed. "I have to go home." she insisted. I struggled to get the words out. But in that split second, it wasn't like the times my voice had stopped working. It wasn't that I couldn't, it was that I wouldn't. I _wouldn't_ tell her. I wouldn't keep her with me. This close call had opened my grey eyes. If I had been ten seconds later, ten seconds slower in getting to her, she'd be dead. Would I turn her into my prisoner to keep her away from her life? No.

I had to take her home. Her home. I wished that I could cry. I wished that I could scream. I wished that I had _any_ way of conveying how I felt at that moment, in a way that she could understand.

The only thing I knew was that if I had to say goodbye to her, if she did have to go home, then I had to make sure she got there. I had kept her safe. I had to keep doing that until I couldn't be part of her life anymore. Reluctantly, I nodded, a woeful gesture of agreement when all I felt was turmoil.

"Ah, huh, sssstay to-gether." We couldn't stay together anymore, only making me more selfish to cling to he vibrant nature while I could. I managed to force the last word out even though it nearly killed me all over again. "Safe." The single need had built inside my brain until it felt like it had replaced my still heartbeat. Keep-Julie-Safe. Keep-Julie-Safe.

A growl that wasn't from me caught both our attentions as Julie's first attacker lurched to his feet. M! I hadn't taken the time to recognize him. I'd punched him in the face, my best friend. Even though it had been to protect Julie and I'd have done it again, I felt a flash of shame. Julie's jaw dropped a little and she took two steps back from M's imposing figure, angling me between M and herself.

M was about as pissed as I'd ever seen him.

"What!" He snarled at me accusingly. I was starting to feel like everyone blamed me for everything.

"Julie." I said by way of explanation. I think I tried to point at her for emphasis but my shoulder joint had seized, and I succeeded only in a jerky flicker of my fingers.

M stared at me with a horrible expression, like I'd betrayed him. "Living?" He questioned. "Eat." He tacked on, causing Julie's eyes to widen.

Determination rose within me. I wasn't about to hurt my best friend, the most important person in my life after Julie. But I wasn't about to let him kill her, either. I shook my head stubbornly, taking two steps towards M for emphasis.

"Eeeeat." M hissed, trying to sway me, but this wasn't something I was going to debate with him. I stared at him with what I hoped was my most steely expression, refusing to back down.

"_EAT_!" Burst out M in frustration. He couldn't understand what I was doing. That was okay since I didn't really either, and I didn't think he was willing to fight me over Julie.

Unfortunately, between our heated conversation and the earlier attack, we had drawn some unwanted attention. At the end of the room, the ominously scrawny shape of a Boney appeared.

"Ohmygod." Julie's voice was faint. She'd seen it. It had seen us.

Not good.

"We go." I said to both Julie and M, trying to point the way. My shoulder still wasn't co-operating but I guess Julie didn't need too much incentive to move in the opposite direction to the Boney now it was coming through the doorway and advancing on us.

"Eat." Murmured M once more as I turned to follow Julie, but even he didn't sound like his heart was in it anymore.

She let out a startled 'whoa' as she saw the groaning herd of Dead through the window, reaching one hand towards me - I don't think she realized she'd done it, since she didn't actually touch me, but it still caused that sudden blip inside my chest to resurface. One of the Dead clumsily clunked a fist against the glass. We were going to have the whole airport here at this rate. Julie stared for a moment, then a guttural screech from the Boney behind us reclaimed our attention. It was still coming towards us.

I grabbed her sleeve and pulled Julie down the nearest escalator. She switched on a flashlight she'd taken from my collection, but I couldn't be anything but grateful to her foresight. Anything that gave us a better chance of escape was welcome. We ran through a corridor and into a larger room with the Boney steadily catching us up - no surprise, since I wasn't so much running as lurching. I thought for sure it would catch us as he hightailed towards a door, but I slammed it in the Boney's face in the nick of time. It screamed in frustration and we both backed away. The menacing skull staring through the glass freaked me out, so I couldn't imagine what Julie must be feeling. It quickly gave up and ran back the way we'd come, to my immense relief.

"This way." I led her down an enclosed service road that led to the underground car park. She was running faster and a whole lot more evenly than me, but my strides were fairly long, so I was close behind her as we ducked under a half-open sliding door.

A trio of Boneys glared at us with death in their soulless eyes, just a few deadly steps away. Both Julie and I froze as they advanced upon us, moving in sync.

With a screech, a luggage cart barreled out of nowhere and mowed three of them down. I couldn't believe it when I saw the driver was M, and my relief was immense. He had forgiven me after all. I had my best friend back.

"Come with me." M instructed. I was sort of jealous that his voice, even if it was raspy, was so human-sounding. He didn't stumble over words as much as I did.

Nevertheless, I wasn't about to argue. I readily took a step towards the cart, but Julie protested with an outraged "What?!", staring at me in disbelief. "_No_!"

Apparently she hadn't forgiven M for trying to eat her yet. I looked at M for help.

"Want... to help." He assured Julie.

Julie looked incredulous and far from warming up to M anytime soon. "Who the hell asked you?" She spat, and M's lips twitched. "Huh. Like her." He told me approvingly. I attempted a grin and M held out his hand to Julie impatiently.

Julie transferred to gaze to me, her suspicion still evident. "It's... o-kay." I said as soothingly as I could. She huffed, but she stalked after me, grabbing M's hand a little ungraciously to pull herself into the seat beside him. "Sure it is." she muttered unwillingly, but she nodded towards the parking spot for our Mercedes. "Over there. The garage."

M looked over his shoulder to make sure I was clinging well enough to the back of the cart, told us to hold on, and revved the cart into action.

Julie breathed a sigh of relief as M parked us a few paces from the car. "Oh, I am so happy to see you right now." She breathed, while her words stirred restlessly inside me, though I couldn't figure out why.

M stopped me with a tug to my hoody as I clamored to the ground. "You okay?" He asked me earnestly. I looked at him in surprise, reverting to a shrug-nod that Julie no doubt would have told me off for. I did make the effort to speak except it came out closer to an exhale than the word 'yes'.

"Um, R?" Julie's voice was shaky and I turned towards her to see a small gang of Dead had gathered in front of her, shifting restlessly as they took in her rich Living scent.

They weren't attacking her yet.

_Keep calm. Keep calm. Don't make any sudden movements._ I slid to Julie's side, then moved a step in front of me, my eyes never leaving the crowd, trying to spot if any of them were about to cause trouble. Weirdly, I didn't feel the same all-consuming anger rising in me as when Julie had been under attack from M's group. I was ready to defend Julie, if I had to, yes. But somehow I didn't think I would have to. Watching them, the crowd seemed... different. Then, as Julie huddled a little closer to me, something happened to completely claim my attention.

Julie took my hand in hers.

My mind wiped. In those few seconds, I forgot about everything. M behind us, the Dead in front of us, the fact that I was going to loose Julie very soon. All I felt was her warm fingers inside mine, my entire world revolving around that simple contact.

Every smile, every tear, every laugh I'd witnessed - I experienced all of them at once. I was blown away. I turned to her, my eyes going from her face to our joined hands. It took all my effort to remember where we were and that we were in danger, and drag my gaze away, back to the crowd.

When she took my hand... it was like they felt it, too. As if the emotion was so strong I could project it from myself. For what seemed like hours Julie and I stood in front of that crowd of Dead, then, with quiet confidence, I led Julie forward through their ranks. They shifted back then began to part to let us through, while Julie clung nervously to my sleeve with her free hand.

"You. Drive." I hated to break the moment and the pair of words became two sentences as I struggled to voice them.

"Good idea." Julie dropped my hand and an empty sort of loss filled me as she rushed to the drivers' side door. She started the engine was the crowd dispersed behind us and I dropped into the passenger seat.

A hoarse roar from the terminal made us both look up. Julie gaped, then hastily threw the car into reverse and backed out of the parking spot, making for the outbound road as fast as she could drive.

The rain began to fall as we pulled away from the airport. I was leaving my home without needing to hunt for the first time all in my hazy memories. I was sitting beside Julie, driving into whatever tomorrow would greet us with, in completely uncharted territory.

I hadn't know what to say to her just a few short days ago when she entered my life. Now, faced with the thought of saying goodbye to Julie, I knew nothing had changed. I'd never be able to find the words.

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**To Superhero, Bones, Ravenclaw, Vid, Jusea, and Brigid, and all my readers and followers - thanks! Shoot me any questions, criticisms, or things you'd like to see happen in a review :)  
**

**To give you guys and anybody following a heads-up, I'm debating a name change. This fanfic has wound up covering a wider scope than I first envisioned and I now see myself carrying through until the end of the movie with it. 'Trying' worked well for the three or so chapters I initially planned. I didn't expect the enthusiastic response from my readers - one of the main incentives for me to expand my fanfics - nor just how much I'd have to say while looking through R's eyes.  
On the topic of a sequel, I've decided that I'll be doing two. The post-Warm Bodies sequel I will, I'm afraid, not be the next one I write. After some great insights from Vid, I've come to the conclusion that to make a future fanfic work, I need to understand Julie better, because both she and R will have a lot more to say and I'll be in uncharted waters. So I will be doing Warm Bodies from Julie's POV before I embark on the next little adventure. I'll keep you posted! **


	8. What the Rain May Bring

I spotted Julie shivering as her fingers reached for the control of the car's heater. I couldn't feel cold, since I was _always_ cold, but judging from the way she was huddled in the driver's seat the combination of wind, rain and the car being a convertible were taking their toll on her.

I was alternating in between watching her - I always seemed to be doing that - with quick, nervous glances, and staring straight ahead because I couldn't figure what else to do to look casual. I wanted to protect her, but I was struggling to think of what I could do against the wind and the weather. Out here, my mind was more easily distracted away from the familiar haunts of my home - a home that, since Julie had come into my life, had steadily become less _my_ home and inched towards becoming _our_ home in my own mind. Keeping her safe was going to be more complicated now.

But then, she wouldn't need me to keep her safe much longer. Too soon, she would go back to her city. A place where I couldn't follow. I couldn't drag a single word from my reluctant lips.

"Jesus, I am freezing. We have to pull over."

My heart leaped at the thought of extending the last of our time together. I would selfishly take anything, any chance she gave me. Almost at once, I felt a sense of shame that I was thinking about me and not about her. It was so easy to forget the rain washing gently over my pale skin must be chilling her to the bone.

"This was one of the last neighborhoods my dad evacuated. Maybe some of these houses have food." Julie's voice ended on a hopefully high note. She slowed at she scouted the silent suburban street. She picked a house she must have found promising, and pulled into the driveway, parking haphazardly half on it and half on the lawn. She climbed out of the car and pulled her shirt closer to her body, staring warily into the darkness, checking in several directions. Out here, she was vurenable, and the tough survival edge she showed the world was more evident than when she'd been on the plane. Looking up at the empty, unwelcoming structure, I felt a sad tug in my insides, the urge to be back home, watching Julie rediscovering things in my collection and listening to the record player. "Okay, come on." she beckoned to me, and I followed her from the car to the front door.

The handle didn't give as she turned then rattled it, a note of hopelessness entering her usually cautiously content tones. "Urgh, it's locked." She was still shivering, stronger now. She needed to get inside.

I gave her hand a gentle touch, feeling a similar tug at my heart. Curiously, she looked towards me as I backed up a step, but she moved aside.

"Oh!" Comprehension dawned as I threw a shoulder casually at the door above the lock. It crashed open - not subtle, but effective. "God." I heard Julie laugh softly behind me, amused by my methods, but she followed me in gladly as I scoped the room, eyes skittering nervously from one side of it to the other - safe. No people, Living or Dead. Julie tried to salvage the door to cover our tracks, then found a lantern, while I meandered over towards a sideboard with a tea set on a wall display above it. It was easier to allow old habits to die hard... not hard, but maybe consistantly... than force myself to speak to Julie. Even if I possessed full articulation, there weren't any words that could bridge the rift between our worlds. Avoiding talking to her though felt like I was willingly cutting off a leg. How was I going to keep walking afterwards?

"Oh, cool! Look what they have! Haven't seen one of these in forever." Julie sounded delighted, her voice pulling me away from my inspection of a now-invisible family's household goods. When I turned to her I was startled by a bright flash in the gloom of the abandoned house. "Cheese!" Julie laughed, and I calmed at the sound of it and the amused flash of her teeth.

"S'alright." She assured me, not knowing she already had with her expression. She padded over to me and held out a square.

I stared in fascination. A photo - a photo of me. It climbed up onto the surface from the fog. My eyes were huge, startled in my pale face. "Yeah." Julie confirmed with a smile as I stared sadly at the person in the picture. I wasn't sure I really knew him. I didn't feel like him.

"It's important to preserve memories, y'know." I stopped looking at the photo, following her movement as she looked around the room and snapped a photo at random.

"Especially now the world's on it's way out. Everything you see you may be seeing for the last time." A beat. I shuffled from side to side a little uncomfortably. "Perry used to say that."

I angled my gaze away from hers, swallowing guilt, then stared at my feet. Julie's hands, holding the camera towards me, entered my line of vision.

"Here. Take a picture."

It was something I'd never have done without Julie being there. But I didn't hesitate. There was only one memory I wanted to preserve.

She dropped her gaze as I focused the camera on her, then lifted back up, her head tilting slightly as she smiled, humouring me.

Taking a photo of her was such a Living thing to do that for a second, I almost fooled myself. A small smile fought it's way onto my lips.

I found some candles for her to see to eat the food she dug up - more tinned vegetables. I let her light them though. The flames didn't seem harmful to me, wouldn't cause me pain if I accidentally let my fingers stray into the golden edge of heat, but still something inside of me warned me off, more with feelings of unease than words. While she ate, Julie experimentally took more Polaroids of the house, though it seemed to be more out of wonder for the machine than our surroundings. I shadowed her at a vague distance, still not speaking, and occasionally she would catch an unexpected photo of me and smile.

After we scouted out the upstairs floor Julie found a bucket which she left outside to half-fill with rainwater, then begged some time in the bathroom. I retreated back downstairs, feeling a little ashamed of myself. I hadn't thought about hygine while I'd kept her on the plane with me. It wasn't like it had ever mattered to me, so I never extended the notion to Julie either.

When I heard her coming out of the upstairs bathroom - the door creaked - I picked up a magazine and focused my eyes on the pictures. Would I just be able to read the words, if I wanted to badly enough?

I still couldn't speak to her. I hadn't said a word since we'd left the airport, and though Julie didn't seem to mind, it killed me to hear the softness, the affection, in her voice when she talked to me. But even though I was avoiding speaking to her my eyes lifted as she came down the stairs, staring like she was my entire world. I didn't miss the way her hands twisted around the banister as she spoke.

"I'm exhausted. The bed actually isn't too rotten, so, I'm gonna go to sleep. Goodnight."

I forced myself to stay still, to say nothing. To act like a mindless zombie, so that Julie might treat me that way. So that somehow, tomorrow, I'd be able to let her go.

Julie only went up four steps before she paused, drifted back down, her wet hair half shadowing her face. It was darker wet, almost a light brown instead of blonde, and it curled more.

"Um..." Usually, I was the one starting sentences that way. "R?" The soft question in her voice, the sign of nerves, broke through the clumsy defenses I had set up. She reached for me with that single letter, and I responded automatically. "Yeah?"

"Well I... I was thinking... you know, you could sleep in there, if you want. On the floor." She was quick to clarify. I swallowed anyway. "These houses creep me out, so..." Julie looked distinctly embarrassed as she lingered for a moment while my brain frantically tried to protest her offer. The fact that she voluntarily wanted me near was playing havoc with my already unresponsive body. "Okay." She all but bolted up the stairs.

It was all still changing. Here, when things between us should be collapsing to an end, instead the fondations burrowed deeper, became stronger.

I stared after her as she took the bend in the stairs, then disappeared from my sight. Instantly, without deciding it, I was in motion, casting my magazine aside on the couch. The agonizing feeling of knowing we'd be apart soon were still there, but the full force of it was dulled in the face of Julie's wanting me to sleep in the same room. I didn't let myself move in the direction of the word _need_ but the hope had unfolded itself that that's what she might mean.

In the small, dusky bedroom, Julie was unfolding a blanket and brushing some dust off the top when I arrived. "Thanks, R." I didn't trust myself to answer, or fully meet her blue eyes. The sound of an engine outside came to my attention, then Julie's a few beat's after. She crept cautiously to the window, lifting a hand to brace warningly against my arm when I followed and we heard the crackle of a radio. I looked over her shoulder and through the crack in the curtains. It was a military convoy - men armed with lights, guns, and jeeps.

"Holy shit that's my Dad." Julie breathed, and for a second I was scared she was going to lean out of the window, call out, and take away the promise of a last night at her side.

She wasn't thinking about herself though. "Get back!" She hissed franctically as a light swung in our house's direction, pushing me away from the window and angling her body between it and me, as if she could protect me herself. The convey proceeded slowly down the street.

"He would have killed you." Julie breathed in horror. She turned away from the window and looked into my eyes. Hers were wide, scared, and silver in the low light. "If he saw you, he would have just shot you in the head... and you'd just be gone."

It was a sobering reminder to me of the way the world was, as upset as Julie sounded on the word _gone_.

I couldn't look away from her.

I couldn't tell her.

She started to shiver again. I didn't think it was the cold this time, but I nudged her towards the bed anyway and when she lay down under the blanket, I dropped onto the floor. I lay perfectly flat on my back, about four foot from from the bed. Julie's shivering only got worse once she stopped walking around and got under the covers, and my eyes kept flicking over to her involuntarily.

"Urgh, these clothes are soaking still. I'm going to lay'em out to dry." My head tilted in her direction, and I must have looked like some variant of alarmed.

"Oh, relax." She grumbled at me, pushing the blanket aside and sitting on the side of the bed opposite to mine. My head lifted itself up to watch her. The realization of what she was about to do wasn't quite as intense a moment as when she took my hand earlier in the evening but it was a close second.

Holy shit.

She stripped off her flannel shirt, glanced over her shoulder to catch me staring, and muttered self consciously. "Don't look."

"Okay." I agreed on autopilot but wild horses couldn't have turned my head away when she peeled off her simple grey singlet top and rapidly twisted her hair into a knot, leaving her torso in nothing but a bra, the smooth lines of her neck and shoulders and back imprinting themselves into my memory. If I had been standing I would have faceplanted the carpet.

_Holy shit._

She stood up, unbuckled her belt and pulled her pants down, the motion finally snapping me out of my daze. I wrestled my head back down, keeping my whole body shock still until I heard the chilled huff as she threw herself back under the cover.

The instant longing to crawl in with her and crush her to me in a hug and keep her warm all night was impossible, but also impossible to fight. When had her trust in me risen to this level? She could have kicked me out of the room to change. She could have not invited me up here in the first place.

Without moving my head, my gaze slid across to check on her. She was lying on her side, facing me, one arm under her cheek.

"Hey." It was quiet, but I felt the question coming. "Do you have to eat people?"

Now. She wanted to talk about this now, after short-circuiting any progress I might have made by letting me see how far we'd come. I had the feeling that seeing her in nothing but a lace-patterned bra and a pair of black panties might have short circuited something else inside my brain but I didn't dare pursue that train of thought. It was enough to revel in this new layer of trust.

"Yeah." I couldn't keep my regret inaudible.

"Or you'll die?" Julie checked.

I thought about how unfair it was, taking somebody's life so I could sustain what was left of mine. I found myself nodding. "Yep."

"But you didn't eat me." Julie pointed out. My throat closed itself off at the very thought. Julie was so much more important than food. "You rescued me. Like, a bunch."

I couldn't stop looking at her. I couldn't speak. I shrugged, and she didn't even scold me. Instead she propped herself up on one elbow and studied me as intently as I'm sure I had been her a few moments ago.

"It must be hard - being stuck in there. You know I see you trying. That's what people do, y'know, try to be better." She had my absolute attention, so steadfast I could take in every single detail of that second - the black hair ties around her wrist, the slim paleness of her bare arm, a hand absently running over her hair. "Sometimes we kinda suck at it, but... I look at you, and you try so much harder than any human in my city."

I couldn't stand it. Even though I thought it might kill me, I pulled my gaze away from her.

"You're a good person, R." I glanced over to see a single tear run down her face. Oh no. Oh no. No no no no...

She was crying agian. Over me this time, and if I thought watching her cry for Perry was painful, this was so much worse. She was wrong. I _wasn't _a good person. "Well. Anyway."

_I didn't deserve her._

"I- it-It was me." My voice didn't want me to say it, trembling violently over the first word.

"What was you?" She'd turned to look at me, I could tell, but I couldn't meet her gaze. I took the watch I'd been carrying in my pocket and jerkily set it on the table between us. Julie reached for it, rolling onto her back on the bed without looking at me, just staring at the watch I'd kept from Perry's wrist.

It could have been hours. "I mean... I guess I kind of... knew that."

"You did?" I asked hoarsely. Why had she ever trusted me?

"Um. Yeah, I... I guess I hoped that you didn't... I'm sorry." She rolled, away from me this time, pulling the blankets close, as if to block me out.

"J-Julie." She didn't turn. She had taken my heart away from me. "Mm... I'm... I'm so... sorry." My voice caught painfully. "J-ulie?"

She didn't turn.

Forget why she had trusted me - what was I doing with her? Apart from ruining her life. Killing the man she loved them fantasizing that I could step right into his shoes.

I had never hated what I was as much as that moment. Closing my eyes in despair, I wished I were somewhere else, someone else.

Something else.

* * *

**Finished writing just on midnight! Seemed like a good way to spend the final two hours of my birthday, working on my favourite couple! Got a busy few days ahead so I may not update again until the weekend, but please hold on in the meantime and I hope you all enjoy this chapter.  
**


	9. Dreams

I listened to Julie's soft, teary breathes become heavier, longer, then smooth into the regularity of sleep. I'd spent so long studying her sleep patterns I knew the exact second she dropped off. Her back was still to me, her body curled in on itself for warmth. I hated that I was the one who had made her feel this way because it only intensified my longing to be the one to make it better, if only I knew how. I pushed away the image of holding her in my arms while she slept for what seemed to me to be the hundredth time. She didn't want me, and especially not now she knew for sure who had taken Perry from her.

The dead do not sleep.

So, I didn't immediately click where I was when I opened my eyes to the rich vibrancy of green trees and registered the burst of birdsong within the branches. Uncomprehending, I looked to either side. Grass. Trees, and more trees. A dirt track that wound in a natural curve, part of the landscape instead of intruding.

I didn't hear her voice, or see any footprints, but I knew with a clarity that matched the blue sky overhead which direction Julie was in.

I took a step. I knew I was going in the right direction, it felt so inherently true, but it took several more before I even noticed the change.

I wasn't dragging my feet. My limbs swung with effortless ease. The world looked different, as if the angle had been tilted, but then I realized I was walking properly, standing up straight, and I was viewing everything from an unfamiliar height.

They were nestled in an open glade between two young trees, three familiar faces even though I'd never properly met two of them. Nora featured in Perry's later memories, and he was instantly recognizable even though I was usually seeing the world through his eyes, not looking at him. He sat with his legs crossed and his arms, also crossed, resting on his knees. Nora was hunched up in a crouch that looked uncomfortable but she held easily, toying with an apple in her hands. Julie, lying on her belly with her legs stretched out behind her, was half way through hers.

"If you guys could pick any job in the world, pretend that everything was totally different, what would you wanna do?" Julie asked the question, of course.

Nora smiled down at her friend. "Nursing." She replied after a moment.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Healing people, and saving lives... yeah, finding a cure for all this."

I had a hard time figuring out what Nora meant. This peaceful orchard looked like a pretty nice place to me. Who needed curing here?

"I like that." Julie was studying her apple. Perry's expression was more downcast than either of the girls, grimmer.

"I think some day someone's going to figure this whole thing out. Exhume the whole world." Julie took a bite of her apple.

"Exhume. And what does that mean?" Asked Nora.

"Um, exhume means to like revive." Julie's brow furrowed, trying to remember a classroom that has little impact in the real world.

"It means to dig up." Perry corrected with finality. "As in, digging up a corpse."

"Whatever." Julie grumbled, not letting him derail her from her train of thought. Nora was looking at Julie and laughing, but Perry glared mildly at me, like I was really there, like he could really see me. Maybe he could. I saw him all the time, why should it be different in reverse?

"What the hell are you doing here?" He was still staring towards me, so I check behind me just to be sure. There was no question now. He saw me. He didn't sound friendly, either. But why would he? I'd stolen his life in more ways than one. Julie had seen me too now. She sat up, her gaze lingering on mine, far more welcoming, open to the idea, than Perry.

"Are you actually dreaming right now?" Perry questioned me, half laughing at the absurdity of that notion.

"I'm not sure." One thing is for sure - that doesn't sound like my voice. It's like my walk - rock steady. Easy. Natural.

"You can't dream, Corpse. Dreaming is for humans." Perry hauled me back down to earth.

"Chill out, Perr." Julie scolded him, defensive of me. She climbed to her feet, standing up for me at the same time. "He can dream if he wants to." Her voice was very soft. It melted my insides in two seconds flat. She came toward me and I felt like I was seeing her properly for the first time. There were no dark circles around her eyes, no wary, watchful glances around potentially hostile surroundings. She was at home here, her skin warm to look at in the sunlight.

I had to smile as she approached.

"What about you R? What do you wanna be?"

I gave my head a little shake. "I don't know. I don't even know what I am." I replied honestly. It wasn't a moment for white lies, or any other colour.

"Well, you can be whatever you want." She meant it. Her smile and her eyes and her expression were so trusting, that standing there in an orchard with her, I believed her words. I believed in her. I believed in _us_. "Isn't that what they say?"

"We can right? You and me?" She nodded once, smiling still. _You and me_. I couldn't believe how easy it was to think those words. To speak to her. To look into her blue eyes. I'd be all right, everything would be all right, as long as she was with me.

Perry grounded me quickly. "It's not gonna happen, loverboy. Not after you told her you ate her ex."

We both looked at him at his words. Julie turned back to me and she wasn't smiling anymore, she studied my face carefully, seeing the pain that Perry's words caused me.

Then she lifted her shoulders, and the smile returned. "Shrug." She told me affectionately.

Birdsong.

Blue eyes.

The smell of apples, and growing grass.

My eyes opened.

I was curled up on my side, and for a moment I was disoriented and could barely recognize my own fingers in front of my face. My eyes flickered to the bed I was lying on the floor beside, the blanket thrown back...

JULIE!

It hit me all at once, staggering, and I ripped myself up off the carpet to take in the empty bed. I almost panicked as I pushed off the floor with my palms, almost fell down the stairs, almost knocked myself out on a low beam at their base.

I made it to the front door despite the limitations of my body. It was grey outside, chilly, gloomy. I looked helplessly up and down the street.

The car was gone, and Julie with it.

She's _gone_. She left me alone here, and I felt as hollow as the monster I was. I staggered back inside, but the first thing I saw was the photo from last night. I lifted it with my shaky hand. Julie. _Julie_.

I needed her. It didn't matter that I couldn't explain why, I just knew that I needed her. Without her I was... I was the nameless shadow that you couldn't even make out because there were too many clouds.

I needed her, and she was gone.

I was in a daze when I left the house behind. I didn't even think about the danger to myself. Corpses never traveled alone, since despite our physical strength, one on one we rarely came out on top of an armed human. A Living could have leaped out wielding a shotgun and popped me in the head without my protest, I was so hollow.

So much for dreaming. You can't be whatever you want. All I'll ever be is a slow, pale, hunched over, dead-eyed zombie. What'd I think was going to happen, that she'd actually want to stay with me? It's _hopeless_.

This is what I get for wanting more. I should just be happy with what I have - things don't change, and I need to accept that. It's easier not to feel. Then I wouldn't have to feel like this.

So I'm just going to go home, I'm gonna blend in, I'm gonna stop thinking so much. I'm going to forget about her. Just like I forgot about everything else.

At first I didn't notice the rain. Then it made me think of Julie, and my heart screamed at me, ripping me apart from the inside.

Then... then... something happened that I don't expect. My skin chilled. I shivered. I wrapped my arms around my body, scant protection from the rain that lashed down unforgivingly.

Shit, am I cold? Is that what this is? Corpses don't get cold. I must have be suffering some sort of mental stress, thinking about Julie shaking in the rain last night.

"Yooooooo!"

I recognized the shout, but I didn't believe it. Slowly but steadily, the figure, a few paces ahead of a shambling collection of zombies, grew closer, fist raised in a triumphant gesture.

It was M. M had come looking for me. I stared at him until we were almost face to face, then M stretched his hand out to me. Brokenly, I reached out to grasp it, then, overwhelmed, I half fell on him and hugged him. I'd never been so relieved to see him. Having my best friend at my side made me that tiniest bit less lonely.

"Come on... you... freezing." Muttered M after a moment, obviously a little awkward, and gave me a push towards an overpass. Under its shelter, the others watching us with various levels of interest, I asked M what he was doing here.

"Boneys. Chased me out." Grunted M. "Came to find you... where is she?"

I didn't think the words would be audible. Surely if they were, he'd hear my heart breaking in them. "Went... home."

M's shoulders slumped and he exhaled heavily, almost a sigh, and he reached out and put his hand on my shoulder.

"You okay?" He asked me for the second time in my memory.

I shook my head. "No." I would never be okay. M jostled me roughly but with feeling a few times in an effort to cheer me up. "Bitches man." I might have cracked a smile if he'd said it under a different circumstance.

"Boneys... looking for you." I shrugged hard, my head drooping. I didn't care. Let them come for me. M's focus didn't waver though. "And her."

That got my attention. I did care about Julie. I knew now that even if I tried to forget her, I would always care about Julie.

But why were the Boneys looking for her? A chill far worse than anything from the rain gripped me. Julie was safe behind the wall... wasn't she? What about the next time she was on a salvage mission? Would the Boneys be waiting for her?

I looked up, looking M in the eye. "You started... something." He continued, then lifted a finger and tapped his temple. "I saw... pictures. Last night. Memories. My Mom. Summertime. Cream... of wheat. A _girl_."

"A dream." It wasn't just me. After finding out Julie had left me, the vivid colours of my dream had paled in comparison to the present, and I'd had no time to think about the fact that I'd been asleep. Let alone dreaming.

"A dream." M's voice held wonder, but satisfaction. He remembered.

"We're... changing... eve-rything." The morning's helplessness was wearing off. The realization that Julie and I, the two of us together, had somehow changed the rules, was snapping me out of my misery.

M is nodding. "We are."

"_We_ are." The notion that there was a _we_ swept through every tired cell of my body. It revitalized me, warmed my cold skin. I knew that whatever the risk to me, Julie needed to understand the way I did right now. "I have to tell her." I said out loud. It came out an almost normal sentence, natural, flowing.

"Will you help?" I looked to the crowd standing behind M. They stare back, not quite as far along as M and I. "Help... exhume?" I pulled the photo I'd taken out of my pocket and held it up. Julie smiled out at the corpses. There was a knowing murmur, nods, though few actual words.

That didn't bother M. "They said... fuck yeah."

I turned Julie's photo around and look into her blue eyes. I'd see her soon. The thought had me grinning like an idiot.

Even the weather pointed us in the right direction - the clouds parting over the highway, the pale sunlight helping dry my damp clothes as we headed towards the wall. I tried to come up with a plan while we moved, with significantly more energy than was normal for us. I didn't know what we were going to do when we got to the wall.

"_You know the way_." I recognized the voice instantly even though it was an echo, not an audible voice. "We _know the way_." I could hear the amusement in his voice, tinged with irony. It was overwhelming. Perry had brought me to this moment, as if he had picked which of his memories to show me, to point the way back to Julie. He'd painted a masterpiece and stood aside to let me take the credit. I couldn't understand why. As if the voice in my head understood my confusion, he spoke again. "_Look Corpse, I'm not going to pretend like we're best buds. It's weird for me, you know, you and Julie. But you're going to take care of her from now on. Try not to feel too bad about... you know. I was ready to go. I had a meaningful death, yeah? It could have been worse. Oh, but you didn't have to steal my watch. I hope you fucking break it, you dick_." He's laughing. I wondered if I was dreaming again, and if I'd been dead so long I've forgotten the rules. Could you dream while you're awake?

At the edge of the stadium was a glass-covered room I nodded to M to stop the others in. "Wait here."

He spoke when I was a few paces away. "Be careful." I turned back to look at him. He _was _changing. "Kay?" I dipped my head in a single nod and started towards the door in Perry's memories.

"So I'll wait here." I paused at M's voice. Yeah, he'll do what I ask, but he doesn't have to like it. I pulled a face at his childish tone and keep going.

I remembered watching Perry and Julie cross the stadium as I trotted in the opposite direction, retracing their steps in reverse. The escalator led down, not up, but I know it's the right way.

I put a little too much effort into kicking the door - my first strike dints it, my second knocked it clear off the hinges. Oops.

Nobody came running to investigate the clang of the door. I carefully clamored over it, remembered to pull my hoody up, and then I stepped out into the world behind the wall.

Julie and I were giving the others hope, and it was spreading fast. I guess the Boneys didn't like that, that must be why they're looking for us. I have to tell Julie before it's too late.

This world was full of life. People walked in twos or threes, chatting quietly, riding bikes, leading a dog on a leash. I passed a pen with a few cows, and a man leading a little herd of goats. One straggler turned away from its flock and trotted after me for a few paces. I almost panicked - could it smell that I was different? _Please, go with your friends. Shoo, leave me! That's it. Okay. _

Leaving the goats safely behind, I focused, wandering down a long, curving street as dusk fell. I had to find Julie. It was becoming a need so strong it was physical, the urge to see her again. Concentrating, I could still smell her... maybe it was more than just her scent. Like all the times she'd been in danger and I'd found myself led to her because she needed me, except this time it was the other way around. _I_ needed _her_.

I happened to spot a dark window that reflected a picture back at me, and it made me pause for a few seconds.

My eyes were closer to blue than grey, why hadn't I seen it a few days ago? I gave my reflection a quick smile. _We'll have Julie back soon_. She was close now, I could feel it.

Darkness had fallen by now, but the building I wound up at was lit with street lamps and lights on inside on the top floor. It was an elegant, fancy sort of house, with a wrought-iron balcony on the second floor and big concrete columns. My heart pounded painfully inside my chest, nerves cramping my insides. This was Julie's house, I was sure of it. What was I going to do now? Knock on the door? What if it wasn't her who answered? What if it was her and she didn't want to see me? Uncertain, I lingered in the shadows outside, running out of plans now that I was on her doorstep.

It was while I was debating with myself weather I should climb through a window, that the balcony door opened, and Julie stepped outside.

* * *

**A/N - I know, rotten place for me to leave it right? :P **

**Thanks for all the birthday wishes guys, I could not think of anything I'd rather have been doing than spending some of it with my favourite characters! **

**I was a little nervous about the end of this chapter. I haven't mentioned Perry very much, because R doesn't think about him very much, and in this chapter Perry sort of becomes closer to the book version of Perry when he's all but alive inside R's head. I'll leave it up to you if that's what you think happened here or if it's just R's way of coping with his feelings of guilt over murdering Perry and then falling for his girlfriend. **

**Three cheers for me - I ordered my Warm Bodies DVD today, and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into all those special features! Now I just have to wait for it to arrive. Sigh. **

**On another note, I was watching one of my other favourite movies today, Just Like Heaven, and it got me thinking how similar the situations are between R and Elizabeth, the main character who is a ghost. She can't remember her name or who she was, but she forges a connection with the man who moves into her apartment building, David. He helps her remember things about her life and piece it all together again, like Julie does for R - made me chuckle that I'd never noticed until now! **


	10. Trust

My heart resumed the pattern now-familiar to me when I saw her. She had gotten home safely, which was my first cause for relief, but just seeing her... _seeing_ her again, filling my sight and my heart.

Julie.

Even though the knowledge that this wasn't just about us anymore had edged into my consciousness, the us factor hadn't been overshadowed, merely highlighted, by it. I remembered how capable I'd felt when Julie took my hand in the car park, how I'd _felt_ so much that surely the other Dead could feel it too. Maybe I'd been right. Whatever might become of me and Julie, it wasn't only important because we were changing things in my world. Julie was important to me. The love - it felt natural, to think that word - that I felt for her might help my kind, but first at foremost it was healing me.

I watched her move across her balcony, to the same side of that I was on, making me want to shout in victory._ Could she feel it, too_? She folded sweatered arms over her body to help keep herself warm, though until that moment I'd forgotten the chill in the air that I was apparently no longer immune to. It didn't have the same effect on me now that Julie was back in my line of sight anyway.

I lurked in the shelter of a rounded column before I realized I was being too zombie and staring like an idiot, even though she hadn't seen me yet. I was about to step out when she sat down, and the act of watching her curl gracefully up on the flat top of one of the balcony supports made me forget who I was (what I knew of that), let alone what I was supposed to be doing here.

I knew this time though that I couldn't stay in the shadows. Snapping out of my daze, I stepped out into the light, remembering to pull my hoody back down so she'd know it was me. I felt the grin flicker on and off my face as I moved, the joy at seeing her knitting forgotten pieces of myself back together.

Julie.

I called her name as softly as I was able, trying to force vocal chords that I could barely get to co-operate at the best of times to now dull into a whisper.

"Julie!"

Her head turned slowly towards me. "Oh my god." She breathed, climbing down from the railing, her eyes wide. "R!" She all but flew along the balcony until she was directly above me, pulling her loose hair back behind her ears in a gesture that nearly floored me. Not because it was beautiful, though I was aware of that, but because it was her. It was human. She still had several black hair ties around her wrist. "What are you doing here?!" Shock, but no anger. The answer sprang at my lips without hesitation, though it was still a struggle to keep my rusty voice quiet.

"Came to see you." I explained, while Julie fell back slightly, bracing her weight on her palms. I hoped she wasn't so shocked she was likely to tumble over the edge. I had my doubts about catching her if she did.

"R, you can't just do that. It's _dangerous_." Julie stressed. The moment she finished speaking, Nora's voice drifted from inside the building. "Grigio, shut up, I'm trying to sleep."

"Uh - sorry!" Julie hissed over her shoulder, while I checked over mine in case we were attracting attention outside of Julie's house. So far it was just us. Completely okay by me.

"Jesus, R!" Julie's attention was right back on me, still trying to hammer home what an idiot I was while I grinned up at her, _exactly_ like an idiot. "The people here, they're not like me. If they see you, you will get killed, do you understand that?"

I actually hadn't given that a lot of thought in my haste to find her, but I nodded anyway. What did my life mean without Julie in it? I was on some sort of unparalelled emotion that she was more worried about my safety and less about my murder of her last boyfriend. That had to be a good sign. Again, the hopeful thought popped into my head.

_Could she feel it, too? _

"Yes." I replied, trying to figure out how to make my minefield of a mind come up with something more meaningful, some more accurate explanation, than that.

Nora saved me. "Are you talking to yourself?"

Uh-oh. Trouble. My smile faded as I peered around Julie and squinted at the rectangle of light from the doorway to see if she was coming outside. Nora's voice sounded a lot closer to the door that time.

"No!" Julie yelled back frantically, quickly coming to the same conclusion as I had.

"Okay like seriously, what is going on out here, Julie?"

_She was right by the door_. It was comforting to know that Julie had no clue what to do either when she flashed me a quick, open-mouthed grimace of panic and then Nora was there beside her.

"Ah..." Julie trailed off helplessly as Nora's jaw dropped. She couldn't help but see me, since I don't think I could have dragged myself away form Julie and hidden again, even if the odd and quite sudden determination to stand up and show myself to people hadn't fused my feet to the ground. Nora was a better than than many to start. She had seen me in the hospital before I took Julie home. Nora would know that I had refrained from hurting Julie in the days she'd been gone. I still felt a stab of fear over how Nora might perceive me - kidnapper? Jailor? Too late to turn back now. I shuffled in place awkwardly as Nora rounded on her friend. "Ohmigod, is that _him_?" On the last word she turned to look at me again and I swallowed.

Him? Him! Julie had been talking to Nora _about me_!

Which was not to say that meeting Julie's best friend properly for the first time didn't make me nervous, my newfound resolution aside. Because it did. I'm pretty sure my attempt at a wave scared her more than if I'd scaled the balcony and gone for her throat. She handled it well though. Much better than Julie had at first, but then again I wasn't covered in her boyfriend's blood and so that probably scored me a few points.

"Sup." Nora lifted her hand and preformed a head-bobbed greeting in an attempt to remain casual. Looked like Julie and I were involving others in our own special band of zombie etiquette.

Julie pressed one hand to her forehead. "Okay, you two are really weirding me out. More than usual. Everyone, inside now, before a patrol comes by. You-" She gave Nora's shoulder a shove towards the balcony door. "This door. R, that door." She pointed to the front door and hauled a still fairly stunned-looking Nora in the right direction. Just before Julie went inside she cast a look down at me, lingering at the doorway. In the line of my sight for a split second, she bit her lip, then smiled.

Thankfully it was only a few steps to the front door from where I stood. I was pretty sure Julie's smile had caused some sort of meltdown inside me. _Get a grip, get a grip_.

I couldn't ever remember having this much trouble standing still before. I scratched the back of my head restlessly, then slapped at some small winged insect that landed on my hand. It was cold and I found that I stopped thinking about it if I shifted my weight from foot to foot, absently rubbing my hands together. Then Julie opened her door and my restlessness morphed a jet engine and took off.

This was where I was meant to be. Except the _where_ didn't matter so much in the light of _who_ I was there with.

This time I couldn't stumble. I looked right into her blue eyes and felt her soul searing mine. The words come out clearly, heartfelt, true. "I'm sorry."

She stepped forward, into the doorway so there was only an arm's length between us. I was very aware of the space. "I know." She forgave me with those words. Did she ever really blame me? Could one heart ever hold this amount of forgiveness? "I'm sorry too." She looked back at me just as steadily. She meant it as much as I did.

I wished I had more of a plan. My gaze slipped, but even with the wave of shyness that had overtaken me now that I was there on her doorstep, not looking at her was far harder than looking at her. "Um..." I managed succinctly, peeking back up at her, then without another moment's pause she closed the space between us, the quick flash of her teeth in a smile the last I saw of her face before she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close in a hug.

She'd surprised me before. The physical reactions my body had to her smiles, her tears, her laughter, her touch, the time she'd held my hand... they'd caught me unaware.

But this was the first time a dream had come true. It didn't surprise me. She had given me back this understanding of emotion that I knew was all her, all tied up in who she was and the way she saw the colour in our whitewashed world and how _she_ felt things.

I _wanted_ this. I wanted Julie in my arms, and now that she was, it felt like the most inherently right thing that could ever happen.

"I actually missed you." Her voice was very close to my ear, the side of her face against my cheek, with her chin nestled on top of my shoulder. Her hair smelled of strawberries, silk against my skin. My arms had come up automatically to hold her oddly fragile frame against mine, one wrapping around her waist and the other higher on her back, feeling the gentle dip of her backbone before splaying against her shoulderblade.

"Me too." Understatement.

I closed my eyes, wanting to prolong the moment so I could commit every detail of it to memory. She hadn't let me go yet, her arms looped under mine, warm pressure on my back from her palms. "It's funny, you feel warmer than I remember."

That got me to open my eyes, frantically trying to figure out how I explained this to her. The mere fact that she'd noticed, that it _mattered_ to her, ruined any rational plan that was half forming in my mind.

A strange wail caught my attention and I reluctantly lifted my head, looking around nervously.

She sighed just barely as she let me go. "That's the patrol. C'mon" She guided me up the step without hesitation, past her, into her house. "Inside."

She clicked the door closed behind us, while I paused for a moment of awe at the grandeur of her house. "C'mon." She came up behind me and took my hand. She held me the same way as she had just before we left the airport, one hand in mine and the other curled around my wrist, as if one hand wasn't enough. It was an endearing habit, one that made me love her just a bit more than before.

"You're lucky my Dad got pulled into some emergency thing." She brought me to the foot of the stairs, unfortunately letting me go as we started to climb. "You're safe here tonight, R, but after that... I don't know what we're going to do."

That made two of us.

Nora was waiting in Julie's bedroom, which she led me into without hesitation. "Nora, this is the guy I told you about, R." I wasn't sure what gave me the biggest thrill - the fact that I was being introduced to somebody like a normal person, that Julie had referred to me as a guy, or for a second time the reminder that Julie had told Nora about me. I had remained a part of her life even when we were apart. "R, this is Nora. She usually stays with me when my Dad's away."

Nora stretched her hand out towards me, and I saw the moment the look of concern crossed her face as she wondered if she was doing the right thing. But thanks to M, I remembered this one. I put my hand in hers and managed a single shake, relieved when she didn't yank her fingers away from mine. Instead, Nora looked intrigued.

"Sit down." Julie invited, nodding towards a battered couch with a wall of posters behind it, while I took stock of the room. Julie checked the balcony door and the curtains were securely closed.

It was a pretty decent space... a house this big probably lent itself to large rooms. I was relieved - the high ceilings and all the space reminded me of the airport, the only place I'd spent any real length of time in aside from my plane. There was a similar sort of clutter here - clothes mainly, but a pile of books in one corner, and a long desk overflowing with brushes and tubes of paint. The room itself was a lot fancier than what I was used to though, with wood-paneled walls, paintings dotted about, and a massive great bed with a frame but no canopy. It seemed ridiculous to picture Julie curled up in that vast bed, lost in the covers. It bothered me when I saw that the lamps on either side of the bed were intricately carved to resemble some sort of animal, and for the life (or not?) of me I couldn't remember what kind.

Nora had been staring at me with the same interest I had for the room. She leaned a bit towards me, inspecting me closely.

"How'd you die?"

I took a deep breath. "I don't... remember."

"How old are you?" Nora fired off the next question without pause. A little spooked, I shrugged. "Because you could be twentysomething, but you could also be a teenager, you know, you have one of those faces." Nora continued, eying me as if I were completely fascinating. Julie groaned. "Ohmygod." She covered her face with a hand while Nora continued. "And I can't even smell- you don't smell rot- he doesn't smell rotten."

Well that was a minor relief. "Um..."

"Amazing." Nora was leaning in a little too close for me to be comfortable by that stage, and Julie came to my rescue. "Nora, stop. He didn't come here for an interview." She scolded her friend, then sat beside me. "Why did you come here, R?"

"To - to show everyone." That hadn't been my primary goal, but I hadn't yet come up with any brilliant words to explain how important she'd become to me and how much she'd changed me.

"Show them what?"

"We can... change."

Julie leaned back a bit from me and sighed. "R, no one here is ever gonna buy that." She told me with regret. "Not that we could get you even close enough to tell them. As soon as they saw you, they would blow your head to bits."

That deflated a little of my optimism. I glanced at Nora and she nodded in sympathetic confirmation.

"Wait..." My gaze swung back to Julie. "Did you say 'we'?"

She would have picked up on that. "Lots of us... changing. D-dreaming." I had to smile a little at the at word, even if the previous mention of my head being blown to peices was a bit of a downer. The brightness of my dream, the ease in which I'd spoken to Julie then, was still fresh in my mind.

"That's... kind of a big deal." Julie gave me a look more searching than Nora's previous ones. I nodded. "We have to move, fast." It was growing within me, the desire to fix things, to set a wrong I had never understood right. Besides, now I had Julie back, it only highlighted my need not to loose her again. My world came with dangers. She had to understand.

"Boneys... chasing me. Chasing us." I emphasized. Julie only needed a second to process that and come up with plan A. "Okay, we have to go to my dad."

Nora didn't agree. "No, that is a _very_ bad idea." I sort of wanted to hear plan B myself.

"No, Nora, he was a reasonably guy once." Julie insisted, but Nora, standing firm, only laughed at that notion. "No no, I think you are confused. It was your _Mom_ who was the reasonable one, it was your _Dad_ who grounded you for a year for stealing peach schnapps, are you serious, it's your dad who likes to shoot corpses in the head!"

All of this headshot talk was starting to get me a little concerned, and I swallowed nervously.

"What other choice do we have, Nora?" Julie asked.

Stalemate. Who knows how many Boneys we'd upset but I was willing to guess it was more than the three of us could handle on our own.

"Still, we'd have to get him through the city." Julie turned back to me. "Someone would definitely see you."

"Not much time." I was depending on them to come up with the plan here, this was their walled-off section of the world and they knew it better than me.

"We could fix him up." Both Julie and I swung to look at Nora, my head tilting. She was biting her lip as she looked speculatively at me. I got an instant bad feeling. "I have some makeup that I was saving for a special occasion that obviously isn't going to happen."

Makeup... er, I was a GUY. Scratch that, I was a ZOMBIE. My eyes widened in panic and I looked to Julie to rescue me. To my horror, her face had taken on that same speculative look as Nora's.

"Yeah... yeah we could! I mean..." The level of relief and enthusiasm in her voice terrified me, but not nearly so much when she began eying me like a dinner dish. "...We could put on a little bit of... foundation... maybe a little blush..." She studied my pale skin while I looked wildly around for a way out. She winced and looked at Nora. "Probably a LOT of blush."

Foundation! Blush?! I shook my head and pulled out my most emphatic voice. "No way." This only made both girls laugh. "Yeah way!" Julie grinned, reaching out to pat my cheek comfortingly. "R, just trust me." Her hand stilled on my cheek, instantly banishing my panic. Oh, crap. Of course I trusted Julie.

I was doomed.

"We're going to have to do something about the clothes though. Do you have anything that could pass on a guy?" Nora plucked at my hoody with her thumb and forefinger and I felt a faint stirring of offense.

"Plenty." Julie dug into a pile beside us and pulled out a plain black t-shirt. She frowned when she held it up. I was no expert, but I was hardly about to fit into that. "Maybe not. R, can you take your hoody off?"

I wasn't quite sure I wanted to, with the way Nora was eyeballing it, it might end up thrown out the window to be eaten by a group of goats. Reluctantly, I got one arm out but then got a bit stuck, feeling a little embarrassed when Julie had to come to my rescue. Unfathomably, that became a lot embarrassed when Julie looked my torso over in just the shirt. I wasn't sure weather I was relieved or disappointed when she took the scrutiny off me and turned to Nora. This emotions stuff was going to take me a while to sort out. "No way is R going to fit into anything I own, and I don't think dressing him in Dad's clothes is the best impression to make on him."

"Well, we could just wash the clothes he has on." Nora suggested, and Julie nodded and flashed me a smile. "Yeah, and I think that hair of yours needs a bit more than a style while we're here. You can have a shower and give it a wash too." She ruffled my hair affectionately. Despite the gesture, my face must have given away that I wasn't exactly on board with this whole makeover, and she laughed and took my hand. "R, relax. I bet you haven't had a shower in ages, and even by today's water-conscious standards you're pushing it."

Julie's hand had some magic power. My body followed hers unquestioningly as she led me into the bathroom. I still felt like some form of protest was due. "Do I - have to?"

She raised an eyebrow at that. "_Yes_." She replied firmly, sealing my fate by pointing at the claw-footed bath. "We even have actual soap and shampoo and conditioner, since my Dad thinks salvaging things like that for me replace him never being around. I'll leave a towel here, and if you just... drop your clothes outside the door we'll get them cleaned. Well, clean_er_, since we are on the clock."

I looked around nervously as she handed me a towel and three bottles. I'd never felt so awkward. "Umm.. Julie? I don't... remember... um, what to do."

She smiled at me, and I was relieved to see understanding in her eyes instead of pity. "Oh right, sorry. This bottle is like liquid soap, you use that on your body - and that one is shampoo, which you rub into your hair and then rinse out, then you do the same thing with this one. Be careful not to get any of it in your eyes, it stings. The tap here, just pull the lever up to turn it on, then away from the wall to make it colder and towards the wall to make it warmer, but the hot water won't last very long, just to warn you."

I had no idea why washing my hair had two separate products, but I cautiously decided to just go with it. Against the girls I stood no chance. Julie gave my hand a squeeze then slipped out of the door.

Okay, I could do this. I just wished I remembered something so basic as taking a shower. It hadn't exactly been a priority for me in the airport. I moved carefully as I removed my shirt, since I think I might have really died all over again if I had to call to Julie for help with that as well. I peeled off the jeans - okay, Nora was right, those definitely needed a wash - then hesitated, a little shy about being naked in Julie's bathroom. I had on a pair of thin shorts under my jeans, something I'd never really had much occasion to take note of before. Then I decided that a pair of zombie underwear was likely not the weirdest thing Julie would have seen (Probably not even the weirdest thing she'd seen of mine, since my plane possessions included a set of fake teeth with vampire fangs and a coat hanger complete with fake cat head), so I pulled them off as well, and dropped the pile of my clothes outside the door before I could find another reason not to.

Man, it was cold with no clothes on. Frowning, I lifted my arm, which seemed to have come up in a million or so tiny lumps. That was new.

Oh right, shower.

I experimentally pulled the lever as I stepped into the tub. I nearly hauled the surrounding curtain down trying to leap out of the way of the freezing cold water that rained down on me. Shit. I hastily pushed the lever away from me.

Ahhhh. Oh. That was better. That was... nice. Really nice actually. The wave of hot water relaxed my tense body, and I startled to feel like this might not be so bad. My head bowed, I stepped back slightly, letting the stream hit the back of my head, splitting into little rivulets to flow down my scarred chest and shoulders and back.

I looked more than a bit horrific, I decided when the chilling water snapped me out of my trance and I finally remembered to wash. The most recent of my bullet wounds had a line of dried, too-dark zombie-blood trailing from it that took some time to scrub away. I couldn't read the labels on the last two bottles I had and I got the feeling I'd mixed up the order of which went on first, but by that stage the water was almost totally cold and I was loosing patience with my hair. I shut the tap off and stepped outside the bath, shivering as the cold air hit my body. I picked up the towel and looked at it blankly, as if that would suddenly make me remember how to use it. I sort of wrapped it around my arms and torso, tangling it and cursing at myself. The knock at the door made me jump so badly I dropped it altogether, where it landed in the puddle of water collecting at my feet. Great.

"You finished R? I've got your clothes here." Julie called from the other side of the door. I looked helplessly down at my now-wet towel. "Um, Julie?"

"R? Are you okay?" She'd picked up on the tension in my voice.

"I dropped the towel." And I didn't even remember how to use it. I felt hopeless. How was I going to convince anybody of anything when I couldn't even figure out something as simple as a _shower_? Julie made a surprised sound. "Oh - right, you got it wet? I'll get you another one."

She knocked a moment later while I wrapped my arms around myself to keep warm, causing an unpleasant flashback of wandering down the highway. Her voice was a relief, reminding me where I was. "R, it's me. Just... pick up the first towel and wrap it around your waist for a second?" I was doing what she said when she nearly gave me a brain meltdown. "I'm coming in."

In _here_?

When she did step inside, a second towel, my shorts and off-white shirt (had it started out off proper white?) in her arms, I surprised myself by being okay. I didn't panic or bolt or worst of all drop the towel I had clumsily wrapped around my lower half. It felt like we were back in my dream, and it was natural to have her here.

She placed my clothes down on a chair, looking in any direction except where I was standing. "I had to hang your hoody and jeans out on the balcony because they haven't dried off really well yet. Can you make do with these just while we fix you up?"

I nodded rapidly, and when she finally made eye contact with me my eyes riveted themselves on hers. They looked bluer than I remembered, brought out by the matching colour of the long-sleeved shirt she had on. "Here's another towel." She stepped closer, looped it around my neck then lifted her hands to run it over my hair, ruffling it in a motion that made me remember how to dry myself. "This is the last one we have, so don't drop this one in the bath or anything." She laughed, then her breath caught as she let go over the towel, her hands hovering over my exposed chest.

"R." She whispered, not joking anymore, placing one hand on me - right where the knife she'd thrown at me had gone in. I hadn't felt anything then, but now I felt something with an intensity that scared me and excited me at the same time, only getting worse when her fingertips moved up to trace around the bullet wound below my shoulder. Emotionally I had no idea what to do with my body's physical reaction to her.

Don't be creepy. Don't be creepy. Don't be creepy. DON'T BE CREEPY.

I kept myself still mainly because I had no idea what I would do if I did move. But a sigh and the words escaped me without thinking. "You're so warm."

She looked at me for a moment, fingertips still resting on my chest. "You feel freezing, I told you that hot water wouldn't last. Dry yourself off and get dressed before you catch a cold or something, okay?" The smile returned to her face and warmed all the way to my toes, even though she took her hand away. "Nora's getting your makeup ready."

Urgh, _that_ reminder ruined the moment, and I grimaced. She grinned at the expression then retreated outside. I managed to dry myself without dropping the second towel. My clothes were still a little damp, but they were cleaner than I had ever seen them so it didn't bother me much.

What did bother me was watching Nora and Julie arranging an assortment of brushes and sponges and tubs of vaguely threatening looking makeup. Julie scrutinized my face then combed my still-wet hair back with her fingers, while I sat still - mostly - with my hands in my lap, still a little self conscious. Nora pressed a button on her tiny record player, an 'Ipod' going by what Julie said, and it started to tick out an unfamiliar tune. Julie was standing over my shoulder, and shot Nora an exasperated look. "Would you change this song please?!"

"What? It's funny." Nora retorted while Julie snorted, shaking her head. "No it's not." Nora relented and switched the song with a press of another button. By that stage I was hardly paying attention to ambient background noise, because my nightmare was coming true and the girls began their work. I couldn't exactly see that the blotchy look of my skin was an improvement, but they both assured me the end result would be worth it. It was also sort of interesting having Julie's gentle, artistic fingers brushing over my face, even if she told me off because I kept twitching or turning my head to try and see what they were doing. Despite my restlessness, they made progress.

Nora finished up my makeup while Julie turned her attention back to my hair, taking a small brush to it. That was a little less alarming than before, perhaps because I didn't have to follow four hands swerving around my face, all brandishing what could have been medieval torture devices - Nora was painting one last layer of something over my cheeks with a look of intense concentration that still bothered me. But there was something very soothing about Julie fiddling with my hair, so I stopped fidgeting and sat still. Any time Julie hit one of the (many) knots in my hair, she worked them out with her fingers so she didn't pull at my scalp, murmuring a quick apology whenever she did hit one that made me start involuntarily. Then she smoothed the brush through my hair until it was nearly dry, while my head lolled and I almost felt like I could fall asleep again, maybe if there weren't murderous skeletons hunting us down and threatening our lives.

"Okay, our masterpiece is complete. I'll go get the rest of your clothes - Nora, can you go and set the security up and turn the generator off?"

Julie went into the bathroom to tidy while I pulled on my jeans and hoody. Success, no assistance required this time. I sat back down on my stool in front of the vanity to wait for the girls.

The face in the reflection caught my eye. I gaped for a moment. It was me... I was human.

There was a warm colour to my cheeks. My strange eyes didn't look so strange , and my lips were a pale red instead of the usual dull grey. Oh, you could still see the scars, though they were fainter, even if the one through my eyebrow was still pretty noticable. My hair couldn't have exactly been called neat, since it had sort of fluffed out again as it dried, but it did look presentable.

In that instant I decided. He was my goal. He's the one I wanted Julie to be with.

The door opened and the girls came back into the room. Nora raised both her eyebrows. "Hold up - you look hot!" She enthused. I appreciated her candor, but was a little more interested in Julie's reaction. Though she didn't say anything, the expression on her face spoke volumes, and she mouthed a single word that I fancied might have been 'Wow'.

My lips twitched into a tiny smile, and I bobbed my head in a nod as I moved towards them.

Whatever came next, I was ready. No - _we_ were ready.

* * *

**A/N **

**Argh, this chapter was a blast to write! Perhaps because it's one of my all-time favourite sequences of the movie. Also I may have had a lot of fun watching the shower scene many, many times, for uh... research. Right? I didn't know when I began that I'd add quite so many extras, it just sort of followed it's own little sequence after I decided the girls washed his clothes (Idea from the book), and that went to 'Well how does he get dressed after his shower, and just how awkward might he be if Julie brought his dried clothes back in' - and so yeah, R wound up spending a lot of time naked in this chapter. Which to be perfectly honestly is pretty okay with me. Yeah... moving right along. **

**Sorry for the time delay in getting it up, I didn't want to put a break in before now and it's been a busy week between work and pets and family stuff. A nice long chapter for you all who have stuck with me!  
**

**Thank you everybody for the continued reviews, and the B-day wishes! And thanks for your review ArkieR, I'm glad people are still finding this movie and falling in love with it! I adore every review, no matter how much or little time you have to let me know what you think, each one is the rocket fuel that propels me to my keyboard to type you guys more! **

**Vid, you are right - I was switching tenses at the end and that's not on purpose. When writing my first draft I didn't catch myself making the switch back and forth, and I went to fix it on my last edit but clearly missed several, which will teach me not to edit at midnight - I was just excited to get the chapter up. I will find time to go back and fix it! **

**Brigid don't ever worry about throwing in a bit of criticism, especially when you're as nice about it as you are! You know, I think the lack of blinking isn't something I'd consciously picked up on before now, so go you for pointing it out to me - I might have to work in a blinking ref for the future now. Oh, and in answer, yes, I do love being able to pick things up on subsequent re-watches - I never noticed Julie's three earrings until about my eighth or ninth viewing, for example!**

**I have to credit a fellow Warm Bodies fan who I've been spending probably more time than is healthy discussing the movie and what's going on in R and sometimes Julie's head. Some of the themes and thoughts R goes through are from insights of hers, and she has such absolutely mind-boggling insights at times it just points me in the right direction when it comes to what to write here. I've never, ever had a muse for a fic before, and it's thoroughly enjoyable - so thank you again, my friend :) **


	11. Timing is Important

My still damp-to-touch clothes didn't offer much protection against the chilly wind that swept over us as we stepped outside. Though with Nora on one side and Julie on the other, close enough that her arm occasionally brushed mine, I soon forgot about the cold. I was more concerned that somebody was going to recognize what I was and I would wind up getting the girls into trouble... even though I knew both of them were armed, I didn't want any shootouts on my behalf.

Worried about what I looked like, I held myself stiffly at first, making a conscious effort to get my shoulders back. I remembered the way it felt to walk in my dream, the easy steps, and tried to mimic that - not just the way I'd moved, but the way I'd felt. I think I loosened up a little. Hopefully. Nora took the lead, hands casually in her pockets, though Julie stayed by my side. I noticed her shooting a quick glance at me - _up_ at me. She was having to look up because for once in my un-life I was standing up straight. The top of her head just barely reached my shoulder - how had I not noticed how small she was before now?

I was brought back to the present when we passed a fire flicking away in a metal can, forcing me to sidestep awkwardly around it - probably leaving more space than I needed to between it and me, but fire is generally no friend to the Dead. We are rarely fast enough to outrun it - I'd seen the zombie occupants one of the airport's outbuildings get charred away to Boneys once. I think it must have been some sort of office and when the fire started - lightning? Faulty wiring? - it burned up the entrance and the struggling dead trying to make it into the open right along with it. It gave me chills to remember the black smoke billowing into the empty sky. I hadn't remembered that night in a long time.

I felt a bit better when Julie put her hand on the small of my back. It probably should have been to steer me gently in the right direction, but instead it felt like she'd picked up on the worry inside me and offered comfort. Maybe my imagination was getting the better of me.

I was having trouble judging overhead objects. A hanging camouflage net grazed my hair - I'd forgotten to duck. Whoops. Had to pay better attention - had to pass for human. Tents and shacks and people flashed by. Two elders playing cards paused in their game to sip from a cup of soup, passing it between one another. I gave a second fire barrel a wide birth, even though a trio of Living were standing closer to it than I would have dared, warning their hands over the flames - apart from the last, who was cradling a baby. I looked away from them quickly, suddenly paranoid that it was my presence making the tiny person cry.

"What?" I asked nervously when Julie peeked up at me for a forth time. I couldn't figure out the expression on her face.

"Nothing." Julie replied, too quickly. I looked at her. "It's just... you look nice."

Nice? I was a makeup-wearing zombie being paraded through a city center!

A guarded tent was looming. I could see the triangle of light from the entrance, bustling bodies moving around inside.

Julie's pace slowed down a fraction. "I don't know how my Dad's gonna be, he gets kinda crazy, this might not work." She admitted nervously. Like I hadn't been stressing over meeting her father before that. I don't think even our zombie etiquette was going to cover introducing your undead boyfriend to your father for the first time. Or any time after that.

"Hey." I reached out to catch her hand to pull her gently to a stop. I couldn't put a name to the tiny sound our hands made coming into contact, but it had a soothing effect on my nerves. "No matter what, we stay together." Maybe it was the height difference, but Julie looked different. Or was it that I was seeing her differently? My head dipped a little towards her to emphasize my words. "We're changing everything."

She gazed back up at me. "I know." She told me simply, nodding. I couldn't let go of how lost I'd been without her, how scared I was now that we were about to be separated again.

"Stay together." I vowed, and she nodded. Whatever we had to face tonight - her father, my kind, an angry mob of Boneys - it had to happen to Julie and I together. If the worst happened and my time was up, I'd die with her at my side, more than I ever could have hoped. And if I'd brought danger to her world, I owed it to her to protect her from it now, fight until I couldn't anymore. "Promise?" I asked her earnestly. Her gaze never wavered. She understood, I could hear it in her voice. "I promise."

An unexpected longing caught me off guard. With the security lights shining down on us, tinting everything in pale blue to match Julie's eyes, she looked beautiful. She _always_ looked beautiful. Maybe because I felt more human tonight, looked the part, I had the feeling it would be really nice to kiss Julie. That I _very much_ wanted to kiss her. How she was looking back up at me like she might let me.

Nora gestured to us from up ahead, and Julie squeezed my fingers tightly. "Come on." She led us towards her friend.

"Game time." _Dammit Nora_. Not that it was her fault. This wasn't exactly the best time anyway.

_Stay together._ That promise was enough.

"All right. Let's do this."

"Excuse me." Stressed as a sharp, official order to stop. I stiffened up at once.

A dark-skinned man with close-cropped hair strode to intercept us before we could reach the tent's entrance. He was carrying a gun.

"Where you guys headed?" A little more informal, but hardly welcoming. Julie faced up to the man, chin high, no sign of fear. How did she do that? "To see my Dad, Kevin." She went to move past him and he rapidly shifted his weight to block her. "Miss Grigio, I can't let you guys in. We're on high alert around here."

Julie shot a very quick look over her shoulder at Nora and I. "Why? What's going on?"

"It's classified."

Nora butted in with obvious determination. "Alright, well, we have our own classified business, so come ooon." She elbowed by Kevin, who strangely enough, didn't protest. Julie followed quickly. Oops, I'd been too slow to stay right behind them, and now Kevin's gaze had fallen on me.

"Hey." I muttered nervously as I trotted after the girls.

"Hey." Kevin said it the same way he's first spoken to us - a command to stop. Suspicion coloured the word. I hovered.

Say something human. _Say something human_!

"How are you?" I looked him right in the eye and spoke without a stammer. _Nailed _it!

"He's FINE!" Nora growled in exasperation, darting back to grab my elbow and pulling me through the tent entrance. She sighed and shook her head once she was in, giving me a little push towards Julie. "Sometimes I don't know what I see in that man..." She muttered, and I gave her a puzzled look over my shoulder. Julie tugged my forward by my sleeve. "This way - don't get her started on Kevin or we'll be here all night." She warned me.

The tent was just the forerunner to a high-roofed warehouse home to all manner of military vehicles like the ones we'd seen looking for Julie in the suburbs. It was busier, bustling in a more organized way than the people outside, with flying orange sparks that made me shy away in worry and men hauling mysterious crates past us. I couldn't keep my gaze from jumping about nervously, trying to take it all in. By a prone jeep, Julie stopped us. "Okay, you guys wait here." She instructed. Even though she only went a short distance away and she was still within sight, I felt horrible letting her away from my side. Nora, standing calm at my side, was a reassuring presence.

"What are you doing here?" Julie's father was broad-shouldered and his face was lined, shadowed by a black beanie pulled down close. I think if I'd been any closer and the question had been directed at me I might have passed out. I'd been sharing an airport with Boneys for all my Dead life, but Julie's father was scarier than any of them.

"What is going on? What is all this?" Julie questioned, and her father began to lead her further down the warehouse. It was difficult, over the noise, to hear what they were saying, so when Nora waved me forward we stealthily followed, keeping on the opposite side to a line of cars and shelving to form a barrier between us. They moved quickly, General Grigio having adapted a rapid military march, and I bade my legs to stride faster to keep up.

Julie finally pulled her father aside, and Nora and I crouched down behind a workbench as she tried to explain to him that the Dead were different now.

"They're changing, Dad. They're... they're somehow curing themselves." She insisted.

"You think they're curing themselves? How's that?"

"I saw it." Julie refused to loose ground. "It is really happening."

"No - you know what is happening, Julie? What's happening is that every day their are more of them and less of us. They are not 'curing themselves'. We're their food source, they are not becoming vegan. They don't eat broccoli, they eat brains - your mother's and your boyfriend's included."

That was uncalled for. I could only see the side of Julie's face, and though she was still squaring off with her father resolutely that reminder sent something like a spark through her system, a spark of sorrow. Even though I'd been the one to take one of her loved ones away from her, it shouldn't be thrown in her face like that.

"I'll explain." I told Nora, seized with the determination not to let Julie get hurt anymore, even by her own father. Nora grabbed at me frantically, trying to pull me back. "Explain! Explain what?!" She hissed. I pulled out of her grip, still vastly stronger than she was, holding up a hand to try and halt her frantic attempt to convince me not to go anywhere near General Grigio. "I got this."

Actually, no, no I didn't, and Nora didn't believe me any more than I believed myself.

"Get yourself home." General Grigio ordered his daughter. Crap, he was coming right for me, still looking over his shoulder at her! "Barricade yourself in the shelter, there is enough there that you can-"

_Bump_.

We both took two steps back at the impact. In a heartbeat, Julie darted around her father and made a final leaping stride to get to me side, that might have been funny under different circumstances. She latched onto my arm, her hand sliding down to grab mine.

_He's staring right at you! Don't lose your nerve now, talk! _"Huh- Hi." _Talk better than that!_

General Grigio was so still he could have been a zombie himself. Except for his eyes, hard, suspicious... and unforgiving.

"Who are you?" He didn't yell it. He didn't even sound particularly angry. It scared me even more, reduced me to the near-mute corpse I'd been before Julie. Not a single answer came to my lips. Julie squeezed my fingers, trying to impart me with some of her strength. "This is R."

I could barely hold that flinty gaze.

"I didn't ask you, I asked him." Gulp. He moved a fraction closer. His eyes were narrowing. "Who are you?"

I attempted a smile. A human would smile. A smile was normal. I think I managed something closer to a terrified grimace. I tried to get out the words. Any words. I stammered, and nothing but meaningless sounds came out. My plan was collapsing in under the weight of those awful eyes.

"You're a corpse?" I nearly keeled over backward when he took a step closer and peered at me intently.

"He saved my life." Julie defended me, but her voice was as nervous as I'd ever heard it, including the times when we'd been under attack from Boneys. By this point, I was staring with fixed fascination at the ground. "He took care of me." Julie wouldn't stop trying. I tried to nod. "I triggered something in him, and that must have sparked something in the others." I dragged my gaze up, forcing myself to look at him, and I was just in time to see the calm vanish altogether under a wave of cold fury.

He had his gun out and me by the collar faster than I could have reacted, even when not petrified with fear. A metal grate slammed against my back and to my horror I was looking down a barrel. "Now he's triggered something in me!"

"No! Dad!" Julie leaped around her father to cling to my other side. _Words words words, he's going to shoot you_! "We want to help."

My first full sentence gave Grigio pause. I saw the hesitation in his eyes. I sounded human. Thanks to Julie, I looked human. The gun stayed where it was as his eyes went between me and Julie, who was still pleading our case.

"Please, they don't want to attack us. They want to help." She insisted. "We're... we're getting better." I tacked on to this, hoping that it would be enough, that he could be convinced yet not to pull the trigger.

"Things don't get better. Things get worse. People get bit, then they get infected, then I shoot them in the head." Was this guy ever single-minded. "No." Julie pleaded again.

"That's what happened to your mother, and that's what's going to happen here." He'd shot his own wife - just what Julie needed to hear right now. But the fact of it sealed my fate. _He'd shot his own wife_. I didn't stand a chance. He was going to do it. I was going to die, really die this time. I closed my eyes. _Goodbye, Julie_.

The sound of a gun being cocked was deafening. "I'm really sorry, Mr Grigio." My eyes inched back open. Nora! I'd forgotten about her in light of my imminent death. Now she stood behind Grigio, her gun drawn, resting the barrel lightly on his neck. It took me a while to process. Nora had accepted me - not only accepted me but taken up arms at my own defense. I knew he'd been about to do it, pull the trigger and shoot me in the head. Nora had saved my life.

"Go. Get out of here and be safe. No matter what, okay?" The tone of her voice left no room for argument. Until then, I'd thought she and Julie were a odd choice as friends. Now I understood.

Still somewhat nervous, I reached up to remove General Grigio's grip on my collar. "Julie." He was startled, but he had the sense to stay still.

"I have to go." Julie's tone told me she wasn't considering staying with her father, even a little bit. She slipped her hand under my elbow, drawing me slowly away from him. As soon as the gun wasn't pointed at me any longer she locked both hands around my arm in her usual manner and hauled me out of there, not that I needed the encouragement.

Darting down an alley and back into the relative open between the tall buildings, we finally dropped back into a walk, if a nervous, jumpy one. "Okay." Julie was panting a little. "That could have gone better." Agreed.

"I need to warn my friends." I had no idea how long Nora could hold the General at bay. Judging from how many people had been bustling around, not long. I didn't want an angry batch of armed soldiers, looking for me, to stumble upon M's group. I would have liked, at this point, to have come up with some brilliant plan. Save my friends, save Julie, save us, save everyone... but I had nothing. Just the realization that whatever we did and wherever we went it _had_ to be together.

"Where?" If Julie was surprised by my sentiment, she didn't show it.

"Stadium." My reply was punctuated by a wailing klaxon alarm and the snapping on of security lights. Our haven of an alley became one of light and shadows, though not enough of the latter to have any hope of concealing us.

"Shit!" Julie breathed, breaking into a run again. "Get into the subway!" At the end of the alley she hauled at a sheet of corrugated iron, leaning her weight on it to shift the flimsy but stubborn material. I lent a little of my strength to hold it aside while she slipped through, pushing at the wire beyond that. Loose at the bottom and one side, it folded back and allowed Julie to climb through. I followed suit, if more clumsily. We slowed down again once we were plunged into the darkness of a tunnel. I stayed close by Julie's shoulder as she produced a torch from the waistband of her jeans, holding it warily in one hand with her pistol in the other. She didn't trust that we were alone down here. I wondered what she was worried might attack us. Boneys? Her kind? Mine?

It didn't matter. I would stay by her. I would keep her safe - that was as vital to both our lives now as it ever was.

My eyes widened a bit in surprise when we came within eyesight of M's band. It wasn't only M's band any longer - is looked like the entire airport had banded together, standing in an elbow-brushing companionable fashion that really had me staring. I heard Julie's startled huff as we took in the sight. "Whoa." she breathed, shooting a quick, nervous look at me. A half grin had crept onto my lips and I glanced down at her, making sure she was with me, before we moved towards them. Julie stayed slightly behind me, but she didn't question, taking her cues from me. Like the moment in the car park when I'd known that my fellow Dead weren't gathered with the intent to harm, I knew it here too. To see them grouped together like this - this was momentous. I kept stealing quick glances at Julie to ground myself, remind me of what had started all of this, to be sure it was actually happening.

A rusty voice reached our ears. "Excuse me, sorry. Coming through. Pardon me." M was gently moving through the crowd of Corpses, and apologizing as he went. That was when I understood the true depth of it. How many days had I wandered through the airport, wishing I could murmur a quick, apologetic 'sorry' to those I bumped in to? A tiny grin remained on my face, despite my shock and my recent near-death experience. This was impressive. And I was ridiculously happy to see M.

"R." M greeted me with the name Julie had given me. She called me R all the time, every day we'd been together, she had introduced me to Nora and her father with it, but nobody apart from she and I had said it aloud.

I nodded a greeting and eyed the crowd and twitched my eyebrows in lieu of raising them, while M shifted his gaze. "Julie."

"Hi." Julie responded with a tiny bit of hesitation, looking at M, looking at him properly, for the first time. My loyal best friend.

"Ready for... a fight." M offered proudly.

"Yeah. I can see that." Julie shot the crowd a still-apprehensive look.

"S-Soldiers coming. Boneys, closing in." I told M. We didn't want to get trapped here.

M didn't even have a chance to respond, as my warning was met with a guttural screech from high above our heads.

We looked up. A sight as horrible as M's crowd was been welcome met out eyes - the Boneys were up there on the domed glass roof. Fists cracked omniously against the glass and fractures spiraled out to ruin the smoothness. Behind us the crowd reacted with sighs of nerves and worry, the same as the three of us. Julie, who was staring in fixed horror, uncertainly drew closer to me. Instantly, I realized there were enough Boneys here to break in, to ravage the Living city and reduce it to the same rubble and bone scrapheap as outside the walls.

"Uhh. They're here now." Groaned M, unnecessarily. I met his gaze, seeing the resolution in his face as he did the stark fear in mine.

"Keep them out." That too, wasn't necessary. M answered without missing a beat. "We will." Nobody could have missed the conviction he spoke with.

The sound of breaking glass punctuated his words. We all looked up once more. The dome was fragmenting. _They were getting in_!

"Run!" M urged us, and Julie needed no further urging. I wished we had more time - M was going into battle for me - no, for us - and I wanted to acknowledge that. I hoped he understood as I took off on Julie's heels. As we made it to the far side of the group, the Boneys began to drop down through the dome.

Running was more difficult than walking, with everything flashing by at an usually swift rate, blurring the details and my concentration alike. I couldn't imitate Julie's graceful strides, though I was keeping to her pace. It helped that my legs were longer than hers, even if I couldn't move them as fluidly or fast.

A Boney snarled wildly behind us, having escaped my friends to gain rapidly on us. Julie took a second to aim, point the gun, and fire. Even though we were running for our lives it was impossible not to be impressed by her dexterity as I watched the Boney fall, roll and go still. A second one quickly caught up and Julie offloaded two more bullets into it's torso as we neared the edge of the sports field. We passed a long-abandoned snack bar and picked a ramp bathed in shadows, headed away from the ground floor that was growing steadily more overrun. It wasn't the Boneys who were closing in on us now though - the sound of shouting, human voices echoed behind us.

"This way, come on!" Julie encouraged me, swerving off the ramp onto a level walkway, which if nothing else was easier for me to balance on as I ran. There wasn't any more light up here, the curved walls distant and reflecting only a dull blue glow.

Usually, Boneys screamed when they crept up on you. This one was stealthy - I never heard it coming. The thin but powerful hands caught my shoulder and I tumbled, landing on my back with a faceful of screaming monster looming over me. Now it wasn't being quiet, and neither was it's hunting partner who snatched Julie around the waist as she was attempting to come to my rescue, pointing her gun at my attacker. The sound of her screaming went straight through me, an invisible arrow shot through my flesh and setting off all my protective instincts. I rolled, furious, all the fire in me igniting at once, and slammed my Boney into the ground. It snarled up at me, and I only realized it had levered a leg between us when kicked me viciously into a brick wall fifteen feet away. I fell in an untidy heap to the ground. It might have slowed me if I'd been Living, but still fueled to keep Julie safe I scrambled straight back up and grabbed a metal container from the ground, that I think may have once been attached to a payphone. As the angry Boney pounced I swung the container and met it's chin, sprang up, and brought it down for good measure on it's head. With one down, I leaped to Julie's side and swiped away the Boney pinning her down and snapping at her face, and I put every bit of muscle I had into it. It collapsed, going deathly still, and Julie gasped. "Thank you!" She exclaimed, and I found a moment to marvel. She still treated me like a human, even after seeing me flatten a pair of Boneys. I caught her elbow to balance her as she climbed to her feet. The sound of more Boneys - or was it soldiers? Did it matter? - further down the walkway reminded us that we weren't in the clear yet.

We were running out of stadium. And at the top of the announcer's box, we met a horrifying site - a dozen of our enemy stood coldly awaiting us, spaced out to block any escape route. They didn't charge right away - they knew the odds, could see it as well as Julie and I could. Empty eye sockets seemed alive with malice.

"Shit!" Julie's eyes wildly sought an escape route.

They roared at us, and I grabbed Julie's hand as they began to advance at a calculated pace. We were being hunted. Behind us, just aside from the walkway we'd used to get here, there was exactly one emergency exit and I raced for it, slamming it open in my haste to find somewhere, anywhere to protect Julie.

The light blinded me and I felt more than saw the empty space open up all around me. I would have fallen if Julie hadn't sized huge handfuls of my clothes, nearly doubling over as she hauled me back from the edge. I steadied us both with a hand on her waist. The light readjusted to my eyes, though for a single moment all I knew was Julie, clinging to my front with every bit as much fear as when I'd been on the verge of falling. "R!" It came out as a choked whisper, so much fear and relief and worry all crowding into the single letter - not for the threat we faced but for me, for the fact I'd nearly fallen over a ledge I could now see was so high up in the air even I might not have survived hitting the ground. For that second there were no Boneys coming for us, just the fact that she had saved my life. I felt something inside me stir, faintly but surely, distant but powerful. Everything around me sharpened, the colours growing bright, the details easier to grasp.

The sun was rising. Dawn had arrived, unknown to everybody caught up in the death-on-death struggle inside the stadium. I shot a frantic look at the group of Boneys coming for us, advancing closer.

"It's over." She had turned to me, her eyes brimming with tears that might never fall. Spotting the flash of water directly underneath us gave me an idea, seeing everything so clearly as I was. There was only this one way out for Julie and I. It seemed like a crazy idea given that only a moment ago Julie had _stopped_ me from tumbling over the edge.

I shook my head vehemently. This wasn't over. No matter what, Julie had to survive and I had to make sure of that. "Keep you safe. Remember?" I reminded her, pulling her close. I had not let go of her waist, and she still had her fingers curled around the material of my hoody. I felt the pressure of her grip all the way to my skin, then beyond that to the muscles of my chest and the heart underneath. It had to be fear that was causing the odd sensations I felt inside me. Julie glanced wildly at the distant ground, guessing where I was going with this. We only had one direction left. The terror flared in her eyes.

"It'll be okay." I didn't know that. But the Boneys were screaming their fury as they became to pelt towards us, and I didn't have time to tell her how much I loved her, what she'd done for me, the world she'd shifted back within my grasp. I could only hope she saw it in my eyes. Without Julie that world would be meaningless, and I would give every sluggish drop of blood, every ragged breath, every decayed bone in my body to ensure that the world didn't loose her.

I wrapped my arms around Julie and pushed backwards off the ledge.

* * *

**A/N - Well, here finally is the next chapter! I actually finished writing this last nights ago and meant to come back last night to edit and proof (Midnight has proved an uncesscful time for me to clean up my writing!) but excting news yesterday is that my DVD of Warm Bodies FINALLY got here and I spent all afternoon and evening watching the movie and all the special features, naturally. In not so exciting news, I ran my car into a pole yesterday and it looks like it will be a write off. *headdesk* So it was actually kinda nice to get WB and have it become the single positive thing that happened in my day. **

**Anyway, we are nearing the end of Learn to Love Again, with one definite chapter to go, which I will add an epilogue to if it needs one, I haven't pinned down exactly where I'm going to end this one yet, though I have some ideas. I'm going to launch right into working on Julie's POV which will be presented as a whole new fanfic, so please look out for that one once we're finished up here. I have lots of fun ideas for that, and even more for my after-the-movie that will be written as the final piece on my planned Warm Bodies fanfics. So stay tuned, my lovely readers! **


	12. Promises

I didn't close my eyes. Even as we fell together the slice of dawn sky I could see was soothing, as was the blonde hair whipping in the wind, Julie's head buried against my shoulder. It was scary, since I had no idea if I could survive this fall, let alone if I actually could keep Julie safe, but there was also something strangely peaceful about falling out of the sky. I didn't feel the same fear that I did when the General about to shoot me. Julie was foremost in my mind, and it had come down to taking this chance, because up in the stadium we'd been surrounded and I couldn't hope to protect her there. This had been the only course left.

She hadn't let me go after she'd grabbed me to stop me falling over the edge, her hands still anchored tightly to the front of my hoody. I hoped _she_ wasn't scared. Remembering how she'd hauled me back onto the ledge, the way she'd said my name as we stood there together, that was the memory I brought to the front of my mind as we fell, as I readjusted my grip on her, wrapped her even more tightly in my embrace. I moved my arms from around her waist, one crossing over her shoulders to press her tightly into me, and other cradling the back of her head. I ought to have kissed her earlier.

The water must be close now. I wondered vaguely if I could swim.

I didn't hear a splash as we landed, but I felt the impact of it slamming my back, then I was weightless and carefree and warm with the sound of the world pleasantly muted all around me. My head whacking into the cement ground happened from a great distance. _Ow_, I thought dully.

I don't have a very good measure of time, so I wasn't entirely sure how long I stayed suspended, between worlds. It was the relaxed feeling I lost first.

I became aware. It wasn't just like I woke up, either. Awareness of sensations that were roaring echoes of the faint whispers from the past few days gripped me. Sensations that shook me roughly, turned me upside down, poured into me. My skin stung and registered coldness. Nervous energy spinning inside my mind began demanding questions I could barely keep up with; _is Julie okay, are you still alive, were you even alive before, is alive even the right word_? My chest tightened, then expanded, every organ inside me following suit. The back of my skull throbbed, nagging. Julie remained within my mind's eye the whole time this happened, the warm golden image of her sharpening, focusing, becoming more than important, becoming my whole reason for being. I would like to say that this was a pleasant sensation but so much was crowding itself into my body I couldn't even begin to sort it all out. My heart pounded painfully. What was this? What was happening to me?

_Was Julie all right_?

I must have been confused. Memories went through my mind's eye. Crisp memories, clear and fresh like the grass underfoot as I set off into the apple orchard in my dream.

_"The people here, they're not like me."_

The look on Julie's face when she asked if I wanted her to call me R.

The feeling of her fingers slipping into mine, asking for strength and reassurance.

_"Please?"_ The way she asked me as a person.

Those same fingers dancing over my face and lips and ears and eyebrows, combing through my hair.

_"I promise."_

Her own unique scent, that had somehow gone from making me outright hungry to being my lifeline, a sweet reminder that I owed her all the good things I'd discovered in my life.

I felt the hands grip me under my shoulders, lift me through the water - I could feel it more clearly now, the cold on my face, weighing down my clothes and my body itself. I felt my head break the surface, and heard a voice frantically calling my name.

"_R_! R, please!"

And, just like each time she'd called to me, asked something of me, my body responded. My lungs contracted, more startling than painful, and I hauled in a huge breath. I shook my head in surprise, as the swirling mass of emotion and sensation within me settled itself down, my eyes opening to find the real Julie in front of me, holding my face in her hands as she guided me back to the world.

Her own breath escaped in a relieved sigh. "Are you okay?" She swept the wet hair out of my eyes to get a better look at me, even though most of it remained sticking uncomfortably to my forehead, running water into my eyes. Her hands went from my face to my shoulders then back to my cheeks, hanging onto me like I was her miracle, not the other way around.

"Uh-huh." I wasn't merely okay. The sheer relief at looking at her, seeing her frantic but alive and here in front of me was incredible. I didn't have to ask if she was all right, I just looked into her face, and I knew.

"Yeah?" She breathed, as if she couldn't quite believe me, while I blinked - and blinking came easily, I didn't have to remind my rusty eyelids to do so like I'd used to - then wiggled my eyebrows, trying to dislodge my hair and chilly rivulets that kept trickling into my gaze, disrupting my view of the one person who meant everything to me. I couldn't stop _looking_ at her. The warm skin tone of her cheeks, and the blue of her eyes more beautiful than any sky, her golden hair still slightly wavy, despite being wet.

She pushed her own hair back then braced her hands back on my shoulders, unwilling to let me go, the fear she had felt for me not entirely subdued, still mingling with the relief I could see all too clearly. I'm not sure if she started moving towards me first or if it was the other way around - it might have been exactly the same time. She shot me a smile - nervous, but trusting - when she realized what was happening, her eyes half closing, then opening for a last peek at me, as if checking if I was sure. I was. This time there was no reason to stop me kissing her.

I'd hoped I'd be able to stay cool, but my brain had other ideas when it did a rapid-fire meltdown the moment her lips touched mine. Julie was kissing me! I hadn't let myself imagine this moment and I was glad for it, because none of my earlier wispy thoughts could have come close to this. The elation I felt burned up inside me like somebody had lit a bonfire, and then, without missing a beat and almost as amazing a notion, I was kissing her back. I was meeting her as an equal, my lips moving surely against hers, reaching to splay my fingers against her back so I could pull her even closer to me. This was the most natural thing I had done, could ever do. Julie cradled my face like it was precious.

Nothing could have prepared me for it. Nothing could ever come close to explaining how she made me feel with that kiss. She'd taken my hand and she'd hugged me willingly, but this was a level of acceptance I'd never dared dream of. This wasn't just _I like hanging out with you_, or _I want to stay with you_, or _I don't mind you aren't technically alive_. Even though it said all of those things, I felt that tentative glow of love and it only served to strengthen my own.

With my newly enhanced sensations all sparking around inside me, I could feel everything. Her fingers curling in my hair and driving me wild, God, _the taste of her lips_, the smell of her skin and hair, sharper because she was wet, and the way her hands moved.

Could she feel it? Could she not? The love in the kiss, this love I couldn't hope to hide anymore? The... the life.

The life...?

_Life_.

She pulled back from me, breathed out, blue eyes wide. "Whoa." That about summed it up. As if kissing her for the first time wasn't life-altering enough, it allowed me to understand.

It hadn't been the catalyst, the kiss itself. That had happened before, when she saved my life up on the ledge, I just couldn't figure out what had happened then. My human memories before being Dead hadn't returned to me then, and they hadn't now, so I didn't have anything to compare this to.

It hadn't been my protection of her that had done it, that alone hadn't been enough. I knew in my heart that all along, it had never been me. It was Julie, and the way she'd treated me and seen me as a person, and _her_ saving _me_... she really _had_ saved me now, brought life rushing back to me. First on the ledge, then setting it in stone when she pulled me back to the surface. No, it had never been about me.

I was so overwhelmed by what she'd done for me that I couldn't figure out how to explain it to her, the gift she'd given me. But for once that was okay. I might not have had the words, but I knew now that they'd come.

Instead of explaining, I kissed her again. I tried to put all of what I felt into it. The wonder. The thanks. The joy. The pride. The hope. Was it just going to get better every time we kissed? If so, I think I could live with it.

Fingers splayed down my cheek, stroking softly, and that's where they stayed when we broke apart for a second time. Julie looked amazed as she stared into my eyes. I was glad I had an existance of not needing words behind me, because I could have stayed where I was, filling my gaze with the sight of her and my heart with this moment.

Except the explosion sounded in my ears and the fiery sting somewhere between my chest and my shoulder a fraction later, drawing a stunned gasp from Julie as I reeled. She spun around, and I stared down in shock ay my chest, wondering if it was even still there, the pain had overtaken me so swiftly and voraciously.

"Next one's the head." The cold voice filled my heart with fear. "Move away from him, Julie."

Without my noticing, perhaps because my senses had been so full of Julie, perhaps because they had simply dulled back into human perceptions I didn't quite know how to operate, General Grigio and a full squad of armed soldiers had approached the fountain. Dozens of guns were pointed at us.

"No!" Julie drew in front of me automatically, where I ducked uncertainly to hunker my height behind her shoulders, my body flooding into an uncomfortable hyper-alert state that put my reactions on a hair trigger and made me feel nauseous, as if I'd tried to swallow human food. It was yet another new experience to take in on top of a hell of a serious fright from the gunshot itself, and not exactly a comfortable one. Of course, all the armed men intent on puncturing me with bullets could also have been adding to my discomfort.

"Julie move, now!"

"Dad, you have to listen to me. I know we lost everybody. I know you lost Mom. But you and me, we are still here."

She was pleading for my life, holding both hands up in a peaceable gesture, while her father and his forces continued to train an excessively large amount of guns on us - me really, but Julie was in the way. For some reason the fear was really getting the better of me. I was frozen behind Julie, terrified one of the men were going to try for a shot at me and hit her instead.

"We can fix all this! We can start over - they need our help. Please Dad! Look at him-" She shot a frantic look over her shoulder at me. "-He's different! He's-" Her eyes widened, processing something she'd noticed, turning back to me. She "Bleeding..." She whispered, disbeleiving, having to see it a second time. She checked my fingers, touching the blood there as if checking it was real, the proof they didn't need to kill me there in my hand. Julie's gaze then transferred to my chest. It was not dripping the oily, dark blood of the Dead, no, this blood flowed from me gracefully, clouding the water - rich, Living red blood. Though this sign of my changed state wasn't surprising to me, somehow I hadn't put it together yet how it would _affect_ me. Bullet wounds that would barely slow me previously might actually be dangerous now. I bowed my head beside Julie's to stare at the wet blood on my fingers. It was pretty hard under the circumstances not to be stunned.

"He's _bleeding_! Dad!" Julie had swiftly latched on to what was taking me a much longer time to process, my hand clenched tightly between both of hers and finally, helping me overcome the nervousness inside me. "Corpses don't bleed!" She was still gasping in amazement as she clung to me. She'd rediscovered her hope, and as always, there was enough for me too. "You're alive?" She whispered, joy lighting up her blue eyes in a way that made me think all of this might just turn out all right. I almost laughed, the amusement of this situation - Julie realizing I was alive thanks to my bleeding bullet wound - catching up with me. "Yeah." I breathed, afraid of disturbing this dream.

"He's alive!" Her voice contained untold relief, almost choking on it, ignoring the soliders wholly now as she seized both my hands in hers. They no longer felt as richly warm as they once had, though I suspected the difference was not her. "You're alive!" She exclaimed again, this time in celebreation. A ripple of surprise went through the men. "Sir?" I heard Kevin ask, as the hostile edge faded from the group.

"Does it hurt?" I thought about that for a moment. The physical pain had taken a while to creep along my rusty neurons and register, or maybe it had just taken this long for me to sort through every emotion all clamoring for my attention and actually figure out which was which. I didn't remember pain in it's physical form well.

"Yeah." I uttered a little nervous chuckle, the gesture sounding foreign to the point of alien coming from me. "Yeah?" Julie might have been crying, though it was hard to tell with her face wet.

Her hope had fully settled upon me, which was an odd emotion with a fresh bullet lodged in my chest. It was impossible to resist with Julie clinging to me, joyous at the understanding that I was alive. My fear had all but vanished now as I placed my trust in Julie - she had brought me this far, she wouldn't let me fall now. Beyond us the line of men lowered their guns and Julie's father picked up his radio. "This is Grigio. The situation has changed." He reported.

Julie held my hand tightly and led me through the water towards the edge. I had a brief flashback as I hung behind her slightly of approaching the small crowd of Dead in the parking lot - the way I realized that they weren't going to hurt us and led Julie through. Now our roles were reversed.

Kevin's sure hand helped me out of the water, and I saw Julie fall into her father's arms and hug him fiercely. I stumbled and Kevin steadied me with a hand on my shoulder, peering into my face. "Hm, I can't tell if you're just pale naturally or if you're in a bit of shock. You look a lot more human than last night though, even if you are in rougher shape. Don't worry, we're going to get you some medical attention. I'm Kevin Rosso, by the way, we weren't introduced last night. It's good to meet you properly." It was nice to be spoken to like a person, and there was no hint of suspicion in his eyes anymore, but I was starting to find it hard to focus, and also a little overwhelmed by the crowd who were starting to come in closer, with various levels of curiousity. Also, once the wind hit me, I had a nice replay of the previous afternoon and walking down the highway in the rain. Yes, this _was_ what cold felt like. The wind went straight through my soaked clothing, cleaned twice now, and sliced into my skin.

Julie threaded quickly back through the crowd, who were all murmuring now, a background blur of sound I couldn't hope to begin to make sense of. I felt a crush of relief at the sensation of her smaller body pressing against mine, slipping an arm around my waist as if she planed to never let me go.

"Kevin, you have way more in common with Nora than either of you realize. Leave him alone." Julie shood him away gently. I blinked gratefully down at her and she propped her shoulder under mine to take some of my weight, helping me towards a functioning jeep. It was hard to figure out why, but I was moving as slowly as I did as a Corpse.

Julie slipped me into the backseat, picking up one leg and tucking it into the small space when my body attempted to fall asleep halfway in. She leaned up, bracing herself on the seat by me. "Be okay, R. I'm not losing you, too, understand?"

"I'll be.. okay." I murmured to her, though like all the times I assured her that things would be okay, I'm not sure. I didn't know how badly I was hurt, I had no experience with injuries as a human. I could walk if with difficulty and I realized with a start that I was breathing (I could see a cloud puffing in front of me when I exhaled) so that must have been good. Besides, I had no intentions of dying. Been there, done that, moped over that.

She lifted herself up a little higher and pressed a fleeting kiss on my lips, which seemed like an excellent reason to stay alive to me. I wondered why she pulled away so quickly but I figured it out when I saw her father striding purposefully towards the jeep - apparently, he was going to drive us.

I didn't know where we were going, but I was sort of content in the backseat, adjusting to my new senses and settling into a pleasing hum of passing scenery - even though Julie was sitting up the front with the General. At one point he held out his hand and Julie looked almost surprised, as if it had been years since her father reached out to her. I couldn't imagine having Julie in my life and taking her for granted that way I suspected the General did.

"Are you still bleeding back there?" He questioned me at one point. That jolted me out of my semi-sleepy state well enough. I had a feeling the wrong answer might get me shot a second time.

"Y..yes." I confirmed.

"Good." Grigio was pleased by that, though Julie shot him a severe glare. Then she looked back at me - a silent apology.

The General indicated with a nod a low slung building with armed guards outside. "Just up ahead."

"Hold on." Julie's eyes were on me, anxious, and I glanced down and noticed my shirt and now my hoody were both soaked through with blood. I tried for a reassuring smile. A pleasant sort of spinning sensation had gripped me.

"R?" Julie was beside me. Dimly, I realized that the sound of the engine had stopped. Julie's face filled my field of vision. "R, please stay with me." She placed a hand on my neck, and I registered my new pulse thudding against her fingertips.

"I will. Julie." I was tired, I think.

"You promise?" She checked, face overflowing with worry.

"Promise." I muttered, then colours grew too bright to see her anxious blue eyes.

* * *

Julie stands in a meadow, a heavy coat pulled around her for warmth. I walk out towards her, taking my time - there is a sense of wonder at the space around us, hills rising gently off one side, flat on the other three, the skyline impossibly huge. When I reach her, she turns to meet me with a smile and a hand outstretched.

She takes my hand and we walk forward together. "It's almost time." She tells me, excitement and the cold making her cheeks pink. I hear a laugh - unfamiliar because it's mine. "Do you have the camera?" I check, that steady human-sounding voice picked up by the breeze. She shows me the Polaroid. Not far away an engine roars.

"There it goes!" Julie's voice rises in a squeal. She pushes the camera into my hands, bounces a few steps back. "Quick, R!"

I line up her precious shot and the flash goes off, and before I can catch the emerging photo Julie springs back to my side and grabs it, and the camera as well. Her energy is unstoppable and irritable, and I'm laughing still as she wraps an arm around my neck and pulls me close, standing on tiptoe so that our faces are almost at the same height. Obligingly I stoop a little. She holds her arm out and takes another photo at the moment she kisses my cheek. Above our heads, the plane soars off into the deep blue of the sky.

"Let's see!" Julie puts the two pictures, one still forming out of indistinct shadows, side by side. "Show me." I tell her, because I know it'll make her happy. The first shot shows Julie with a huge smile, the plane like a toy suspended in the sky beside her head. When the second one clears, there are two grins, but the plane is so small above us it looks more like a dot. Julie's lips are on my cheek, and I'm looking sideways and slightly down at her. My eyes are a brighter blue than hers.

"I love them!" Julie wraps her arms around my waist and kisses me at the top of my chest, just above the top button of my shirt. "Thank you, R."

"I'm glad we saw it." I smile against her hair. "I'm glad I was here with you."

* * *

"R?" The warmth of the dream, which I'd just recognized it for, began to fade. I clung for a while. It had been so real, and I'd been so wholly in the moment. Then this moment grew in significance. Just as before, my body responded. Julie called me and I answered. My eyes flickered, then opened.

She was higher up than me - after I'd adjusted to the perspective of things lying down, I realized I was on a bed and she was standing beside it. "Julie?"

"R." She breathed, and the stress fell away from her features. The bed creaked as she leaned on the edge, checking me out with obvious relief. "You're awake, it's so good to see you."

"You l- look tired." I blinked - was that my voice? I was more raspy than I'd sounded as a Corpse. I hoped I hadn't died again.

"I've been here for two days. You took a long time to recover after your surgery." Julie gently touched her fingertips to my collarbone. I didn't know why, but that brief moment of contact jolted me from fingertips to toes. I felt it long after she took her hand away.

"Surgery? They d-did surgery... on me?"

Anxiety brought a frown to hover on her features. "They took the bullet out. You remember what happened, right?"

I nod weakly. "Boneys, soldiers, fight-ing. The plane. Yyy-ou, mostly." I summoned up a smile that didn't feel as strained as it used to on my face.

It didn't seem to work very well, since Julie began to cry. Damn, seeing her cry still tore me up. "Hey. Julie?" I went to reach out for her with the arm closest to her, but discovered that it was stiff and uncooperative. Not because I was Dead, but because there was a restrictive load of bandaging high on my chest, spilling onto my shoulder.

I used my other hand and touched her face, which sent the same sensation sparking through my blood as her touching me had. This was new, and while it felt unexpected, it also felt _right_. "J-Julie? Tell me - what's - wrong?"

She couldn't answer for a minute. She leaned down on my bed, hiding her face from me, until I touched her cheek a second time. Then she sat up, her voice shaking. "What's wrong is that you nearly died. You only just... just... you're alive now. You have to stay that way." She finished, and wiped a cheek with the back of her hand.

"Ju-lie." She focused properly on me. I pulled a deep breath into my tired lungs. I couldn't stumble this time, or say the wrong thing. This was too important. "I'm not dying. I'm living. Because of you." I took careful breaths between each short sentence, concentrating on each word. "You restarted my heart. It's yours. If..." I hesitated now, my voice cracking, not because of disuse for once. "If you want it."

Finally Julie returned my smile. She flung herself - gently - onto my bed and hugged me tightly. "You're such a cheeseball. _Yes_." I hugged her fiercely, my heart thumping happily under her chest. When she looked up at me I kissed the wide smile that was edging out her tears, shifting over as much as I could to let her lie on the bed beside me, since I had no intention of letting her go anytime soon. My hand found a bruise on her arm under her elbow, quite a large own, and I frowned. "Are you okay?" She nodded, brushing off my concern. "A few bumps from our impromptu wrestling match with the Boneys. Don't try to make me out to be the hurt one, you have the bullet wound." She snuggled against my side, carefully, and I glanced around. I had been too focused on Julie to pay much attention to my surroundings. The room was small, with barely enough room for my bed. In the little space on either side was some equipment - hooked up to me - to my right and Julie's now empty chair to my left.

"Nora? M?" We had left both of them in fairly dire circumstances.

"Both okay. Nora was here last night, and Marcus this morning." My brow furrowed up at the unfamiliar name. "M remembered his name on his way here. " Julie explained as she leaned an elbow on my very uncomfortable pillow. "He's close to coming back to life, too, according to the doctors. Nora got locked up for the rest of the night for threatening Dad, but Kevin let her out in the morning. To be honest, I was kinda glad it kept her out of trouble that night. Dad opened the city to the Corpses, though that term doesn't really fit anymore, who helped us fight off the Boneys. He's led two trips already out into the Dead Zone to fight off the Boneys and find more almost-Living."

I listened greedily to this flow of words, catching me up on the events I'd missed. This was comfortable, despite the new addition of gunshot wound - me quietly listening to Julie's sweet, comforting voice. I was quiet out of choice this time at least, since words didn't seem quite as insurmountable anymore.

I realized my eyes were sliding closed, an unfamiliar sluggishness smoothing the ache in my chest. "Hey Julie? I think... I'm tired."

She stroked my cheek lightly with a hand. "That's not surprising. Go to sleep, R. I'll be here." I felt Julie's lips touch my temple. "Promise."

With the arms of the girl I loved around me and warmth in my heart, peace descended.

* * *

**A/N - I know, ultra long time keeping all my readers waiting! It probably comes as a surprise to some to hear I -haven't- actually been spending all my free time watching my Warm Bodies DVD back-to-back... although come to type of it, that sounds like a fun way to spend a day! Those car troubles last chapter have resulted in some serious schedule upheaval for me and more than a bit of stress, and I don't have as much writing time as I'm used to. Rest assured I haven't given up, I'm just a little distracted by life. **

**I hope you all like this chapter, thanks again to all my reviewers, those who have been with me from the start and those newcomers alike! Love you guys!  
**


	13. Behind Walls

When I woke, I became instantly aware of Julie, who was curled up more on me than on the bed. The half of me she was lying across was warm, the other half cold - I had a thin blanket covering me and seemed to be wearing some sort of white gown underneath, but the air was decidedly chilly. It was strange, not seeing the flash of red when I looked down at myself. I wondered where my hoody was and felt a brief moment of nostalgia for it. It was like an old friend, there beside me through thick and thin.

Julie shifted slightly against me, still fast asleep. Her weight, even slight, was putting a little pressure on my bandages but I barely noticed. Watching her was too enthralling. Breathing rhythmically, with her hair haphazard but always beautiful around her face - I recognized that she was still deeply asleep from my own sleepless nights on the plane. Watching her sleep was no less meaningful now, no less familiar, and I'd grown used to the patterns she displayed when her eyes closed at night. I would know when she was about to wake.

I took stock of how I was feeling. A little hollow underneath my ribcage, though it took me far too long to realize that might be hunger. Hunger as one of the Dead had not been dictated by the stomach, and was instead more of an all-consuming need that forced our rusty limbs into action. My wound hurt, but it wasn't overbearing, though maybe the beeping equipment beside my bed had something to do with it? After sleeping - who knew for how long - I had woken up feeling relaxed, my mind fresh, my thoughts clear. That felt wonderful in itself, although I suspected it would take some getting used to.

The contentment stayed with me like a faithful pet sitting at my side as I lay and looked at Julie. Her face was half visible to me, head propped on my shoulder, both her arms stretched across my body and one of her legs too, just for good measure. The first time I'd seen her, I'd been drawn to that irresistible spark of life she contained - could it have been because she had what my existence lacked? I hadn't been alive, and I'd still fallen in love with the life in her. It didn't seem like quite such an unfathomable surprise anymore. It was the natural progression of things, as comfortable a fit as the contours of her body alongside mine.

My mind flashed forward, wondering exactly what would happen from here. Julie and I had come through together, even if I was stuck in here for a while recovering. We'd found the cure. The whole world could change. I couldn't comprehend how, lying there in a bed hardly wide enough for me, let alone Julie as well (though to be honest I _was_ kind of enjoying that part) in a tiny room without even a window to see outside. Would I have been able to see a difference in the world if I'd seen it then? Would the sky be a deeper blue, the air a little sweeter? I didn't spend much time dwelling on it. Selfishly, my imagination didn't stray far from myself and Julie. It didn't really matter what happened from here. As long as we stayed together, I would tackle anything.

I would actually be able to talk to her now. I'd struggled, every day I'd know her, to express myself like I'd always longed to. It was a scary thought, communicating with Julie properly, letting her interact with me without the shield of my being a Corpse. But then, every great thing starts out a little scary, doesn't it?

I think I dozed. When I became aware of the room again, Julie was stirring very slightly, her eyelashes fluttering without opening, her fingers tensing and relaxing - that was easy for me to feel, since the fingers of her right hand lay low on my ribcage, an interesting sensation I was mostly enjoying, even it it made psychically me a little apprehensive at the same time. That's confusing, by the way, having more than one very different emotion squabbling inside you. I was having enough trouble sorting out one at a time. I supposed with practice, it would become more natural - but it was all so more powerful, more in the moment, than what I'd felt when Dead.

I was looking expectantly down at Julie when her eyes opened. She yawned, which morphed into a wide smile when she saw me. "R! Hey, sleephead. Are you feeling better?" She shifted position so she could look at me with a little more ease, but she didn't show any signs of wanting to get off the bed.

"Much. I slept well. G-good company, maybe." She grinned at that, dropping her head to nuzzle at my neck with obvious affection. "Must have been, huh? How's your chest feeling though? A nurse checked on you last night after you went to sleep and said you were doing really well. Healing fast - your whole body, not just this." She hovered a hand over my chest. I blinked, digesting that. "Do I look different?" I was curious. After so long paying so little if any attention to my appearance, it was sort of interesting now, seeing myself start to change (the mirror in the plane) continue the process (the window on the way to Julie's house) and then the completion of a sorts when the girls helped me look more human. Had I gotten that far yet?

"Well, the main difference is your eyes. They aren't grey anymore."

"Really?" That surprised me, although a memory I couldn't grasp lifted it's head after she said it. All of the Dead I knew had some shade of cloudy, slate-grey gaze. Oh yeah, _was _forgetting that I wasn't dead anymore.

"Yep. They're a really, really deep blue now. They're gorgeous, actually." A small grin crept onto her face along with the compliment. I felt my cheeks warm up, not helped when Julie stared at me with unashamed delight at the sight. "Uh. N-not used... to..." I stammered, and Julie laughed and brushed back a lock of dark hair from my forehead. "Truth be told R, I never minded your eyes being grey, either. They were your best feature, really expressive."

Expressive was not a word I'd ever had merit to apply to myself. My surprise must have shown, because Julie smiled. "There were a couple times the last few days I'd look at them and think they had a blue tinge, but I convinced myself it was just wistful thinking. I know my instinct was right now."

I found myself smiling back at her. Julie watched me with a contented look, propping her chin up with one hand. "Am I still pale?"

She chuckled softly. "Yeah. You haven't had much chance to work on your tan in here."

I looked towards the closed door. "Can we go outside?" The idea became fixed in my head, though my motives didn't have anything to do with getting a tan. I wanted to leave behind the stale air of this little room, stretch my legs and feel the fresh air.

"I don't think you should..." Julie trailed off, looking at my expression, then she grinned. "Jesus, R, put the puppy-dog eyes away would you! Not even the meanest nurse could resist that look."

Yes! _Score_!

"Don't grin at me like that." Julie's eyes shone, still amused. "You can't just head outside with these drips and monitors and stuff. Wait on and I'll see if I can find your doctor. And if he says you aren't allowed out yet, you _are _going to stay where you are."

"Mmmm." I agreed noncommittally, instantly missing her when she climbed off my narrow bed. "Don't you 'mmm' me, Mr Zombie!" Julie laughed and vanished through the door, leaving it ajar. I could hear voices murmuring and occasional beeps from outside, and I lifted my head to watch the hallway as I waited.

Julie appeared a short time later, leading a dark-haired man in grey scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck. He looked tired, with shadows around his eyes, but he smiled at me as he came in. "R, it's good to see you awake. I'm Dr. Monteresso, but everybody just calls me Karl. Julie tells me you're already sick of being cooped up?"

"H-Hi, Karl. Ye...ah." I followed the stethoscope a little nervously as he placed it on my chest, listening to my heartbeat. Julie sat down and watched as if she were thinking about asking to hear herself, a little smile hovering on her face. "That's probably a good sign, actually. I know my patients are _really_ sick when they're happy to be in this cramped place." Karl held a small device to my ear and I leaped in surprise. Julie placed a reassuring hand on my knee. "It's just a thermometer, R, to check your temperature." She explained, and I settled down, a little embarrassed. The thermometer beeped in my ear and made me jump again, but Karl didn't comment. "Temperature normal, and your wound is healing up really well, excellent signs. You were lucky nothing vital was hit - a little lower and you'd have wound up with a bullet in your lung. But you are looking stronger, and I don't think you need the IV anymore."

He bustled around with practiced ease, detaching equipment. I shot a hopeful look at Julie. "Can I go outside?"

Karl paused to look over me one last time. "Yes, you can, but you aren't being discharged just yet, so you aren't going any further than the hospital grounds, and that isn't far. No more than an hour outside. And, I'm placing you under the care of Miss Grigio, so don't think I won't hear about it if you don't toe the line."

Karl helped me sit up, watching me closely as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My entire body felt battered and sore, but not unbearably, and I could hardly feel my bullet wound. When I stood, Julie there to offer me her support, I was pleased to do so smoothly.

"Hey, you're up!" Nora appeared in the doorway and bounded in with enthusiasm, dropping a crackly packet of something into Julie's hands. "Got lucky, something other than carbtien bars today." Nora then showed no hesitation when she grabbed me in a hug. "Glad you're okay, R." I hugged her back a little shyly with my good arm. Julie swatted her playfully with the back of her hand. "Go easy on him Nora, he did have a bullet in his chest a few days ago." Nora let me go and elbowed her friend. "Oh yeah, way to look after him, Jules, letting your dad_ shoot _him." She chided, and I tried to join in the banter, enjoying their teasing. "I was... distracting, her at the time."

Nora looked at me with her mouth open, then burst into laughter, and Julie followed suit. "_R_!" Even Karl cracked a grin.

Nora stopped laughing when she took stock of my doctor. Her eyes widened a little bit. "Hey, I don't think we've met. I'm Nora." Karl smiled a very large smile in greeting and shook her hand, holding it perhaps a bit too long. Nora didn't seem to mind at all. I glanced sideways at Julie, and she met my gaze with an amused twitch of her lips - she had noticed, too.

"I'm Karl, the pleasure's all mine. Sorry I have to go, but we're short staffed around here, most of us are trying to cover three or so jobs."

"I'm sure I'll see you again soon." Nora winked at Karl as he left, then turned to us with a grin. "Wow, you really lucked out! I mean, not that either of you two lovebirds would notice, but that is one hottie extraordinaire Doctor."

Julie slid her arm around my waist, smiling tolerantly, and we took a few steps towards the door. Nora tagged along, still chattering on about Karl, who I must admit had seemed pretty ordinary to look at to me, though Nora's opinion was somewhat stronger.

Julie seemed to know where she was going. It took a few minutes, since my pace wasn't exactly quick, but it was worth it when we descended a short ramp and the fresh breeze hit my face. I stopped completely, closed my eyes, and inhaled. This felt a thousand times fresher - and better - than any previous memory of stepping outside.

"That makes you look like a hungry zombie again." Nora commented, and Julie whacked her arm. "Nora! Leave him alone!" She scolded, then guided me to an old and very worn park bench so I could sit. Nora just laughed and followed us, sitting on my other side. "I was just kidding, you know. You look a lot... not better, because you didn't look _bad_ when you were a Corpse... but you are _nicer_ now." I was surprised to hear this second compliment on my formerly Dead looks in one day. "Th-thanks Nora." Dammit, my speech _still_ wasn't a hundred percent, but the girls didn't comment on it. I took a deep breath, looking around to check out our surroundings. It was late afternoon, and several other patients were out in the small strip of land that bordered the hospital building. A few of them glanced our way, including one family with a small curly-haired boy. He smiled widely at me and waved. I didn't think he looked familiar, but I waved back at him before turning back to Nora.

"Actually Nora, I need to thank you f-for something else. Standing up to J-Julie's... father for me." Still a few wobbles, but Nora just waved her hand dismissively. "Don't mention it, R. I already owed you one, you saved my best friend. I'd be bored without her." Nora threw a punch over me at Julie's shoulder, but she whipped up a hand and knocked Nora's away. "Still, you came through for us, Nora." Julie told her, while I basked for a happy moment at the sound of the word _us_. "Thanks."

Nora smiled and touched her shoulder to mine, lightly, careful of my injury. "It was mainly for me. I wouldn't have met Hottie Doctor Karl if I hadn't. Do you guys think he has a girlfriend? He wasn't wearing a ring." She pursed her lips speculatively.

Julie laughed, leaning back and taking my hand in hers. The wind, though it was refreshing, was a bit chilly, but I didn't complain. In the same sort of way the pain had been eye-opening, the slight uncomfortableness of the cold was okay by me. Another reminder of how far I'd come. I listened to Julie teasing Nora about her relationships - apparently she'd been seeing Kevin up until pretty recently. While they talked I stretched my legs out in front of me and watched the activity in the grounds and the street beyond the fence. There were two guards posted at the fenceline, and one eyed me suspiciously until he saw I had seen him. It made me feel a bit down, but remembering how Nora had showed no hesitation in looking out for me made me remember that I had more human friends now than just Julie. Not everybody would be as accepting, and that was probably directed at all my kind (I'd now begun to think in terms of 'former-Dead') rather than me alone. I hoped, anyway. With time, people like the hostile guard might see that we weren't a threat, not anymore.

"Okay, I got to go." Nora jumped up and stretched. "Julie, I heard that classes are going to start up again next week and the kids are asking about you. For now, it looks like we'll be keeping to the same old schedule, but I'm sure they'll let you know if anything changes. I'll catch you two later, okay?" Nora didn't bother to go back inside, she just headed for the fence and hopped over easily. The suspicious guard shouted a protest - maybe he was grumpy with everybody, not just former Dead? - but Nora just laughed, made a rude gesture, and skipped off down the road without looking back. Julie shook her head after her friend. "She never changes."

"You teach kids?" Julie hadn't spoken about herself much back on the plane, as if by not talking about her life behind the wall, she wouldn't miss it. Now I was hungry with the urge to know every detail about her, every precious thought that passed through her mind. I had a lot of time to make up. She nodded, turning to meet my eyes. "Yeah, second grade, although normal classes only run in the mornings now. They get taught basic survival skills and stuff useful to salvage teams in the afternoon, by some of the trained soldiers. I love the kids at that age, they're all still so hopeful and honest and full of life, they haven't learned that life isn't one big adventure yet." She smiled wistfully. Julie teaching a bunch of kids how to read and count _fitted_ her. Like the traits of the kids she'd mentioned, Julie herself was completely honest and filled with hope for the future. They would relate easily to her, I thought.

"I joined the salvage team for the holidays, to... well, to keep an eye on Perry." There was still some regret in her voice when she said his name, but it wasn't heartbreaking sadness anymore. I held her gaze, daring to edge into the topic I'd spend a long time avoiding. "Julie, when I... when I K...illed him, I got some of his memories." I explained to her with only slight hesitation. "Sometimes, it was almost like he was still with me, looking out for me - or y-you, more likely. This probably sounds crazy." I lowered my gaze, feeling, as usual, ashamed of myself over the role I'd had in Perry's death. Julie didn't disappoint me, squeezing my hand a little tighter. "After what we went through together R, nothing sounds crazy. I don't blame you, you know that, right? There's been a theory about Corpses gaining memories that way for a few years now, although nobody knew for sure." It wasn't really surprising, that the Living had worked that one out. There had to be some reason behind it all, the way we had gone for brains, not just flesh, for nourishment. Julie looked at me earnestly. "I know that isn't why you saved me in the lab, either. I saw you staring at me before you ever attacked anyone. I thought at the time I must have looked like somebody you used to know when you were Living."

"No, that was just you." I told her honestly. I had already been over that moment myself a few days ago, back on the plane. I shook my head. "You started ch-anging me right away, the first moment I s-saw you. Perry helped me... it wasn't like..." I struggled to find a way to express what had happened. "When I... got his memories, it wasn't like I turned into him, o-or everything he felt, I felt. But when I understood how he... felt... about you... and everything you'd done for him, it began to aff-ect me. Open up my heart again." Julie smiled at though, though it didn't quite reach her eyes, which still held some sadness. She had loved Perry, and she missed him, and I understood. Perry was the lifeline that connected us both. "Without Perry though, I couldn't have done it. He t-taught me as much as you. I felt like he'd br...ough you to me. I even thought I heard him talking to me, when I came into the c-city to find you. He was showing m, me the way. And-" I didn't want to say the next part, but holding anything back from Julie now was beyond my power. "He t-told me not to blame myself, because he was 'ready to go'."

Julie nodded right away, confirming this. "He was." She said softly. "I could see it in him. He gave up right after his dad died. I tried so many times to help him, and get through to him, but nothing worked. That's why I went on the salvage, and convinced Nora to come as well. I knew that if it came down to it, he would stop fighting. I thought that I-" She broke off, swallowing hard, and I opened my mouth to apologize, but she held two fingertips to my lips to stop me. Steadying her shoulders, Julie took a deep breath. "No R, _no_ more saying sorry. Thinking about Perry does make me sad, and I miss him a lot. But I don't wish that things were different. Dying was what Perry wanted, and Living was what you wanted. It's like... it was _meant_ to play out like this. I'm happy I knew Perry, and that I was with him. But I'm happy that I met you too, and that I'm with you now. My past, and my future."

Future. We had a future now - all of us did. My heart expanded. "You... you r-really want t-to, be w-with me?" I had to check. Julie lifted my hand, still in hers, to kiss the back of it. The double scar that had once crossed the back was barely visible now, only if I squinted. She didn't laugh, she answered me seriously. "Yes, R, I absolutely want to be with you. But will you promise me something?"

I don't need to think about that. "Anything."

"You're going to go through a lot, and we've only taken tiny steps today. I want you to promise that you'll always talk to me, like you did today - even if you think it's something that will be hard for me to hear, or it's embarrassing, or you think it's too silly. Because that's what Perry stopped doing, he shut down, and wouldn't talk to me or anyone else, and I knew I was losing him. I don't want to go through that again. I want to be there for you."

That _was_ an easy thing to promise. She wasn't even asking for her, she was asking for me, my beautiful, selfless Julie. I would spend all my new Life trying to match her, prove to the world I could be as wholly _good_ as she was. "I promise." I vowed, looking into her eyes the way I had when we walked through the city and she'd said the same words to me. "I'll n-never stop trying, for you."

She kissed me on the lips, making my wind-chilled skin long for her touch. She sighed after a moment and broke away reluctantly. "Our hour is up. I'd better get you back inside before one of those mean nurses comes hunting you down."

"Okay." I let her help me up, and in a flash of daring, I surprised her when I quickly leaned down to kiss her again. I was never, ever going to get tired of that feeling. Things got a bit more intense this time when Julie leaned tentatively into me, making me very aware of the contours of her body, then curled her arms around my neck and buried her fingers in my hair. I pulled away first, trying to make sense of just how powerful my feelings had gotten all of a sudden, my breath short, my mind racing. My body was clearly remembering things about the physical side of relationships that I hadn't caught up to yet. Julie grinned at my expression. "Sneaky kiss, Shrugger. Better tone it down a bit though, or we're going to wind up with an audience. Besides, you're not in any condition for anything that should take place behind closed doors anyway. Come on, inside."

She firmly wrapped an arm around my midsection and helped me back inside. I wrinkled my nose - the antiseptic-smelling corridor wasn't very welcoming after the clear air outside. I stealthily shifted my head so my nose was just above her hair and inhaled her unique Julie-smell. My body relaxed instantly. Much better.

Back in my room, Julie settled me into my bed and sat back in the chair, though she pulled it close so she could prop her elbows on the bedside. She tucked my single blanket over me.

"How'd you k-know I wa-was cold?"

"You have goosebumps. See?" She peeled the blanket back just far enough for my forearm to be exposed and touched my skin, which was covered in the same tiny bumps I'd noticed before my shower. "So th-at's what gave me... away." I glanced up at Julie and verbalized the thought that popped into my head. "Was warm with you up here."

Julie laughed out loud. "Nice try, R. The nurses are making rounds and I don't think when they check on you they'd be too impressed." She picked up the packet I'd seen Nora give her earlier and examined the label. "Excellent, barbeque flavor. There's only the one small place making these still. I can't wait until we can get a bit more junk food back into production." She opened the pack and took out a round chip that smelled pretty good to my new human senses. The hungry sensation in my stomach kicked right back in, and Julie glanced over at me. "You wanna try one? I don't think potato chips are the most nutritious choice for your first proper meal."

I focused, trying to replicate the look Julie had earlier called 'puppy dog eyes', tilting my head slightly, small smile, eyes big and hopeful.

Julie snorted and shook her head. "If you don't cut that out, we're going back to your jet and getting you some of those sunglasses, I swear. Here." She handed over a chip. I accepted it a little clumsily, then took a bite out of it. A few crumbs escaped, but on the whole, much neater than the food I was used to.

I chewed twice then choked slightly, swallowing in a rush. Julie lifted her eyebrows in questioning concern. "It's... I'm okay. It tasted good." Taste, another on the long list of things I had forgotten. Eating people didn't taste like much of anything, so I wasn't prepared for the way salt and flavor and texture interacted on my tongue. Julie handed me a bottle of water. I took a few cautious swallows, licked my lips, then hopefully held out my hand for a second chip.

We polished off the bag between us, with Julie fishing out the last, broken one and holding it to my lips. I smiled and ate it, though I nearly choked on it when a familiar figure appeared in the doorway. At least this time he didn't have a gun.

Julie patted me on the back, jumping herself when her father spoke.

"Julie. R." General Grigio said gruffly, and Julie replied, blushing a little. "Hey, Dad."

He might not have been armed, but my voice box up and jumped ship the moment I saw him. I managed a nod.

"How are you feeling?" His steely gaze had landed squarely on me. Crap, a question that required something other than a nod, shake or shrug.

_You can do this, you can do this_. "M-much be-b-bet-ter." Okay, I sounded worse than when I'd been Dead, but I had spoken.

"Good." Grigio spoke in the same clipped, impersonal manner, but his expression didn't look quite so terrifying as before. "Julie, I trust you're headed back to work next week?"

Julie just held back a sigh, I could hear it catch in her breath. "Yes, Dad, Nora's already been round to fill me in that classes are starting up again. How's everything out there?" She nodded to a wall, though I had no idea if she could tell directions apart inside my tiny, windowless room.

"Improving. There are a lot of Corpses starting to act more human, and a few of those more advanced are interacting with people - under armed supervision." He added on the end with a warning glare at me. I swallowed. "I'm leading out Squad Three tomorrow morning, and we're headed to the outskirts, so I'll be gone just over a fortnight. I've come to escort you home tonight, leave your friend to get some rest now."

I almost panicked at the thought of being stuck in here without Julie. Luckily, she came to my rescue. "No, I'm staying here until R is discharged." Her voice was very firm, and I felt a thrill at her challenging the General over me.

"Julie, don't be-" He began, taking a step forwards, but Julie actually interrupted him. "I said _no_, Dad. I'm sorry, but R needs me, and you're only going to spend half the night going over your plans for next week anyway." She squeezed my hand, then stood up and approached her father, kissing his cheek lightly. He looked stern, but he wasn't protesting. "Have a safe trip, okay? We'll see you when you get back."

"All right." Grigio said at length, and my heart leaped. _Go Julie_, I cheered silently. "Oh, the Rossos have agreed to house in your friend, once he is discharged." He said over his shoulder, shooting a look that was _definitely _a warning at me before he left. I exhaled for the first time in what seemed to be an hour when he was gone.

"Sorry." I muttered, and Julie laughed as she perched herself on the edge of my bed. "Don't worry, he has that effect on a lot of people. He's all bark and no bite really."

"The Rossos... Kevin?"

"Yeah, he and his father are Dad's right-hand men. They're nice people, even if Kevin can be an uptight idiot sometimes. Don't worry about staying with them though. The moment you're allowed out of here, I'm taking you back to my place where I can keep an eye on you." She ran her fingers tenderly through my hair. That news brought a smile on my face. "Really?"

"Really. Mrs Rosso is a sweetheart, I'll warn her not to bother making up a bed for you. She and her husband would never tell on us, and Kevin will keep his mouth shut because I'll sic Nora onto him otherwise." She flashed me a wicked grin that melted my heart.

"You... r-really want me there?" I felt a little shy asking. Julie looked down at me, her grin softening. "Of course, R. I've gotten kinda used to having you around, and it'd be especially weird to spend a night apart. That's why I asked you to stay in the bedroom that night in the suburbs."

"M would make a j-joke about me staying overnight."

"Yeah, he probably would. Good thing you're so much more mature than him, huh?" We both laughed, and Julie dropped her head on my good shoulder and kissed the side of my neck as she hugged me gently. "I could listen to you laughing forever. But seriously, R, don't worry. That's not an invitation to jump into bed with me as soon as you're able. We don't need to rush anything physical, it'll take time. Both of us."

"Time." I agreed, nervous at the very mention of a _physical_ night with Julie, even if my joke had kinda been what brought it up in the first place. But my relief at the news I wouldn't have to adjust to living with strangers, no matter how nice, remained. "I - I'm glad I'll b-be staying with you. Don't wa-nt another new place." Her arm circled my waist and she pulled her small body close to mine, and the way my breath caught, my heart skipped, and the still-fresh memory of our kiss outside made me a little regretful there wouldn't be any rushing. But however ready my body had decided it might have been to be with Julie, my mind was another matter. So far the day had been an onslaught of sensations unfamiliar in their intensity, and I was more than a little tired trying to sort it all out. "Hey Julie?"

"Mmm?"

"Thank you."

When I next opened my eyes, a frowning face was glaring at me over the top of Julie's head. Hastily I touched her shoulder to wake her up. "You two!" Lectured the nurse, lips pursed disapprovingly. Uh-oh, so this was one of the mean nurses Julie had joked about. She hastily slid out of the bed, somehow having wound up under the blanket with me. "Sorry." She said to the nurse, though it hardly sounded heartfelt. "Nothing happened." I added, my cheeks heating up.

"I should think so, in your condition! These bunks are not designed for two people, I'll have you know." The nurse handed me a bar wrapped in paper, tsking when Julie leaned over me to plant a kiss on my lips. It may have made the nurse frown but it sure put a smile back on my face.

"R, I'm going to go freshen up and maybe see about finding something to eat myself. I'll be back soon okay?"

I nodded twice as the nurse made an impatient shooing motion with her hands. "It isn't even visiting hours. You, start eating that carbtien." She grumbled, and Julie paused in the doorway to made a gesture at her back with a single raised finger that I immediately placed as rude. I let out a laugh that I hastily turned into a cough as Julie grinned widely and vanished. I unwrapped my breakfast and took a cautious bite. It didn't have any real flavor and wasn't nearly as good as the chips Julie had let me have yesterday. But with the nurse glowering, I ate it all, and I did feel better afterwards.

The nurse was no less impressed when my next visitor turned up. "M!" I beamed. He looked no worse for wear after his scuffle with the Boneys, in fact he had better colour than I'd ever seen and he smiled at me when he came into the room.

"R. Lo-oking good. Ni-ce bullet w, wound." He pointed at my shoulder and I grinned. "Should get one. L-lastest fashion accessory."

The nurse finally stopping glaring, but mainly because she left, and M sat down in the chair. His motions were less clunky, too.

"How's things?" I made a vague nod to a wall to mean 'out there'. M offered my favourite gesture as his shoulders rose and fell. "Better for, many. Cure... spreading."

"You remembered... Marcus? Your name?"

He looked proud for a moment, an unfamiliar emotion to see on his face. "Yeah. You keep... calling... me M, t-though. Old times sake. Met a girl." He grinned. I smiled back. "Let me guess... pretty?"

"Drop dead... gorgeous." M said it with a straight face, but I groaned. "You'll kill me again!" I protested.

"I don't, t-think your sense of h-humor came alive yet."

"Hey you guys, don't make me call that nurse back. I don't think even you'd stand up to her, Marcus." Julie reappeared in the doorway, and I was pleased to see she seemed more at ease with M now. She came to sit on the bed by my feet. "R, I have some good news for you. Karl says you can go home today." Her smile announced how pleased she was, and mine must have been just as wide. The mention of home did make me think of my plane, and all my things, a strain of nostalgia edging into my relief. Maybe we could visit the airport once I was a bit more mobile.

"Now?" I pulled out the Look and with a laugh Julie bunched up my blanket and threw it at my head. "He said he'll come give you a final check as soon as he can, and if you look good, yeah, really soon."

I settled back, torn between impatience and delight at the news. "M, have somewhere you can... stay?"

"Yeah. Kev set u-us all up. Bit crowded." Grunted M. Julie nodded. "It's not for long though Marcus. Dad has plans to spread the word, hopefully re-unite people with those they knew before. And he's already considering expansion of the city. There's even talk of when we might not need the wall anymore, if things keep getting better." Her voice rose hopefully at the last sentence.

"They will get bet-ter." M sounded confident. Julie glanced at him. "How do you know?"

He offered a lopsided sort of smile, and I answered for him. "He met a... girl."

"Aaaaaahhhh." Julie grinned wryly. "That didn't take long. What's her name, Marcus?"

"Emily." He winked. It was somehow a fitting gesture on him. Maybe the equivalent of my shrug.

"How's my favorite former zombie doing in here?" Dr. Karl was my next visitor. Julie introduced he and M, and they shook hands before M excused himself, saying he would see us soon. Karl came over to examine me, nodding when he was done. "Okay, R, you're progressing really well. Your bullet wound is healed to quite an advanced stage, your body is handling food properly but, just _don't_ go getting ahead of yourself once you're released. It's healing well, but it's still a serious injury." He cautioned. "Julie, I want you to make sure he doesn't move around too much. Two more days bedrest, only light walks of about a half hour each time until he builds his strength." She nodded, eyes shining. "Keep him on just carbtien for a few days, too. He shouldn't have too much variety in his diet until his body has adjusted." He bent his head to write on a clipboard attached to the foot of my bed, and Julie made a quick motion by drawing her finger over her lips that I interpreted as 'The chips will stay our secret'.

"Okay R, this is it. I'd to see you back on the third day for a checkup, but hopefully you won't have to stay here again for a while." Karl smiled and shook my hand. He offered to find me a wheelchair but I was determined to stand on my own two feet. He wished me well. I thanked him, and he headed across the aisle to check on his next patient.

"Here R. They had to cut your shirt off, so Nora got you a new one." Julie handed me a grey shirt with a subtle speckle pattern that looked, if not new, then clean. "The jeans are yours, but they've had another wash, and I did save your hoody, too."

That cheered me up even further. I dressed in the bathroom, glad to be rid of the gown, and though I was a bit clumsy in getting the clothes on, I did manage. Then Julie helped me down the corridor, outside, and back into the world.

"We don't have far to go to get home, but Karl recommended a rest once we got halfway. Are you sure you're okay?" Julie had an arm under my shoulder and was paying careful attention to the way I moved. For my part I was so enjoying the ease of standing up straight and moving fluidly, that I hardly noticed the dull ache of my shoulder. I just felt so content to be out in the world again. "Sure." I smiled at her and her worried expression softened.

There were plenty of other people out - mostly walking, some exercising dogs or riding bicycles. We got a lot of glances - some were friendly, some were surprised, a few looked upset or even angry. I tried not to dwell on those ones, avoiding eye contact and ducking my head so low I slouched unknowingly back into my zombie-posture, like it would protect me from the hostile stares. Julie gave me a poke and told me to ignore the people who had a problem.

We stopped to let me sit and 'catch my breath' as Julie put it on a stack of crates opposite a pen containing several cows. It wasn't too far from where I'd first entered the city, and I realized the wall was within eyesight when Julie turned to look at it through two nearby buildings.

"I hate that wall. I know it's kept us safe, but it also kept us trapped. Stuck in its shadow, everyone got grimmer, somehow. Do you think it'll really be able to come down someday, R?"

I pictured a city sprawled out comfortably, instead of all hemmed inside a metal border, with sunny, open spaces and smiling people in the streets. I could see it. I could see it so clearly.

"Yes. We won't always need it." She pulled up her feet and leaned against me, cured up comfortably. I could have sat there with her all afternoon. Maybe I would.

I think I dozed in the pleasant, early-afternoon sun. Julie's body stiffening against me jolted me back into the present. There was a small crowd gathering in front of us, instantly making me nervous. We stood up, Julie instantly shifting her weight so she stood slightly in front of me.

"Excuse me - are you the one who used to be-" A older woman with white hair was clearly struggling to ask a question. Julie answered for me. "He used to be a Corpse, yes. But we've just come from the hospital, and he's Cured now." Her tone was a little sharp, defensive, I think. The woman still looked flustered. "Oh, he looks so..." She waved her hands, embarrassed, but although she dropped the thread, the group around us was growing - I still had no idea of how to measure how many people were there, but it was enough to have my breath start to shorten, nerves making me twist my fingers together, panic threatening to take over my insides.

"How is he cured? Have they looked at his blood?" Asked a young man, then everybody was speaking at once.

"How can we be sure?"

"Speak up, boy, are you alive? Or are you a Corpse still?"

"Yeah, can they make a cure for the rest of them?"

"That's not how it works-" Julie tried to answer the closest speaker, beginning to look more than a little tense herself. "He still looks pretty pale, and he has those weird scars, are you sure he's cured properly?" A middle-aged man interrupted, peering closer at me and causing me to flinch back. The ring of people had closed in, forming a semi-circle around where we'd been sitting. I was beginning to feel really trapped. More people began calling questions out, so that I couldn't hear any of them. I probably would have been too shaky to reply anyway. Was this what it was going to be like? Would I have to face people like this all the time, who wanted something from me that I didn't fully understand myself?

Without thinking about it, I drew closer to Julie, who turned to meet my eyes. Immediately, I felt calmer, better able to cope with whatever the world had in store for me. I stretched my arm out for her, felt the warm brush of her fingers, wrapped mine around hers slowly but with a sureness that dulled the panic inside me. She held my gaze for a few seconds, as if the crowd had vanished altogether, and it was just her and I. With all the times I had defended her from my kind, now I needed her to do the same thing for me. It hit me so strongly now that it might have keeled me over, except it felt so very right, and powerful for it - _I needed Julie_. Right now, today, every day after this one. She could see it, too, I could tell from the gentle fire in her eyes - I wasn't allowing myself to dare think the word _love _yet - she understood.

When my attention finally returned to the group, I realized they had fallen quiet, questions fading to soft chatter to near-silence. Wide eyes took in the sight of the two of us. I couldn't understand why it affected them except to come to the same conclusion that I had that day in the parking garage, when it was a hoard of Dead we faced instead of Living - that the emotion I felt for Julie was so strong it stretched beyond us, that they could feel it too.

Julie took a step forward, bringing me with her, eying the group who now fell back, leaving a gap for us to pass. She led me through, though I stayed very close to her, and then we were past, the moments of apprehension staying behind as well.

"Sorry, R." Julie apologized once we were out of earshot and her house was visible further down the street. "I should have known that people would be curious. They shouldn't have been so overwhelming about it, though. People have been stuck behind this wall so long, they've... well. Not everyone tries as hard as they should."

I had already moved on, my heart-rate returning to what I hoped was normal, and I was dwelling instead on the more pleasant fact that Julie hadn't let my hand go. I smiled, shaking my head to show her it was okay now. A few more moments passed in silence before I realized it wasn't a time for gestures alone, that I had to keep making the effort to share my thoughts with Julie.

"Hey Julie?"

"Yeah?" She stopped, a few feet from her door, looking up at me curiously.

"When it happens, we'll watch the wall come down together." She turned to look into my eyes and smiled warmly, wrapped her arms around my waist and giving me a moment to do the same. We said the last word at exactly the same time.

"Promise."

_The End_

**A/N**

**I know some of you thought the last chapter would be just that, but I found I had a little more to day yet (Shocker, yeah?). Hope you guys all enjoyed this. The one big thing I found the movie lacked was a little more of a peek into what R and Julie go through at this time, since we jump from his gunshot wound to watching the wall come down without anything in between. Hopefully I've done an okay job with Human R. At one stage I worried I was making him a bit _too_ emotional, but after I took stock of everything he'd gone through it was really the only way to write him at this point in his life. As R realizes, every emotion he's feeling is more intense than anything he's known, he's changing physically, and of course he's madly in love. Lots going on for him to cope with, he and Julie have so much to face, from the progression of their relationship to bringing Perry's death into the open and just adjusting to R being human. Even if he has the physical reactions of a 21-year-old, the sum of his life experience is eight or less years wandering around as a zombie. R's confidence will build with time, you do get glimpses of it in this chapter.**

**I'd like to thank all of my very wonderful fans of this fic. Especially those who reviewed, which is a really strong push for me to get my writing completed faster, and to reach for a higher standard for you all. I would love to continue to hear feedback from any new readers however, don't be afraid to let me know what you thought of this fic!**

**Jusea, Brigid, Emmett, Vid, and Ravenclaw, you guys stuck with this fic for a long time and took so much time to let me know your thoughts, thank you for your support!  
**

**The idea at the end btw, where the crowd is peppering R with questions and he takes Julie's hand, was not mine - that was directly influenced by my wonderful muse, that gem is hers and I must thank her - she suggested the original idea as a great place for me to end this fanfic, and I ran with it. I bow to your genius, my friend!  
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**Keep your eyes open for Julie's half of this story, which will be called 'Give Me a Reason' - the first chapter is now up :) - and after that, there will be a fanfic set after the movie called 'Next To Me'. If you need to fill in some time feel free to check out the R/Julie videos I have apparently become addicted to making, there is a link to my Youtube in my profile!**

**Thanks again you guys.**


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